Trespass
by thesaltyavocado
Summary: It's eleven-forty a.m. on November 18, 2027. He's twenty-four years old, and he doesn't remember anything.
1. Chapter 1

Chris wakes up in an unfamiliar bedroom, disoriented and covered in sweat. Years of conditioning have made him a light sleeper, so the grogginess itself feels strange - a sign of danger - and as he opens his eyes he realizes he's in a room he's never seen before, which is never a good sign.

Wait - his brain catches up - _stupid_. He closes his eyes again and listens: ambient sound from a street, muffled, a quiet hum from either a heater or an air conditioner, a faucet dripping somewhere close by. But no breathing, shifting of clothes, talking. He's alone.

Breathing a sigh of relief, he opens his eyes again: cotton blankets, blue and white, a towel and a crumpled sweater hanging off the foot of the bed. It's an apartment, clearly - there's a small kitchenette and a futon couch a few feet away, and a door that must lead to a bathroom. Chris sits up cautiously, suspicious. He's wearing a black, plain t-shirt and a pair of worn boxers, and nothing else. There are clothes all over the floor, and an open carton of takeout on the small nightstand next to the bed. Chris wrinkles his nose; the entire room smells like dirty laundry.

Chris slides off the bed, looks around. The clothes on the floor look to be about his size. There are protection runes drawn on the cinderblock wall beneath the lone window, and against the wall, there's a cheap bookshelf overflowing with magical reference texts. A small cauldron sits on a hot plate in the kitchenette, and a fishing tackle box is lying open next to it, potion ingredients strewn haphazardly throughout the compartments.

He snorts in disbelief. Somebody's _got_ to be fucking with him.

He finds a pair of jeans that look relatively clean and puts them on, and starts poking through the pile of crap that litter every available surface: most of it is just discarded papers and envelopes, flyers for concerts and restaurants, pens that are cracked or out of ink. Chris finds a few pieces of junk mail with his own name on it, and an address: _729 Hitower Rd #3, Reno, NV_. So he's still...on the same side of the continent, at least.

The books are just books: your standard beginner's library of witchcraft, nothing controversial. It looks like whatever was attempted in the cauldron was a simple invisibility spell, nothing weird there either. Chris tears through the small closet and finds only more clothes, and a pile of old magazines beneath a pair of Nikes. There's a cell phone plugged into the wall, but Chris can't get into it - it's locked by a passcode, and after halfheartedly trying to bypass it a couple of times, he gives up.

It's either a trick, or something much more serious: Chris doesn't remember how he got here. He sits down on the futon and tries to remember the last thing that happened to him, but there's nothing - just a dull, groggy blankness. All he can come up with is the vague sense of a fight of some kind - a remembered ache of pain, sense memory of the sizzle of an energy blast too close to his face. The last solid _memory_ he has is of sitting at the dining room table with Paige, talking about spellcraft theory and trying to ignore the distant sounds of Leo and Piper arguing out in the garden. But even that memory feels distant - something that had happened weeks or months ago.

The smartphone alone is proof that Chris is no longer in 2003, but even the style of the clothes would be enough to tip him off. Chris gathers his courage and risks a look at himself in the bathroom mirror, but nothing seems all that different - his face is still...his face, his body is still his body. He looks about the same age as he feels, which is also a relief. He's clean shaven, and there are bags under his eyes, but he's used to that too - the only real difference - the only real surprise - is a tattoo, which he only catches a glimpse of when he's bending down to splash water on his face. It's on his back, but he can't make out what it is - all he can decipher is black linework, but without another mirror to see the whole thing he can't tell what it's supposed to be.

The date and time hadn't shown up automatically on the phone before, but Chris goes back and taps around until they swoop into being: it's eleven-forty a.m. on November 18, 2027. He's twenty-four years old, and he doesn't remember anything.

"Great," he says, out loud to nobody. The words echo a bit, in the high-rafted room, and he winces at the sound of his own voice.

Well, it could be worse, he figures.

* * *

There's nothing else of any use in the apartment, so Chris leaves. His first instinct is the manor, but that's even stupider: he's got no idea what the situation is here, where Wyatt is - _what_ Wyatt is. So lacking a better option, he just walks outside instead.

He's never been to Reno before in his life, but the neighborhood he's in seems normal, residential. There's a gas station down the street, with prices that seem ridiculously high, but - gas in 2003 was probably dirt cheap compared to this time period, and in his original timeline, gas stations didn't even exist. So he's probably lacking some vital context on that.

He'd found a wallet - presumably his wallet, although there was no ID in it he could find - before he'd left, and uses the cash inside of it to buy a newspaper. The president is someone named Diego Bonilla, and they're fighting a war in Georgia - useful information, he guesses. Sort of. A Senator from Montana has just stepped down because of the death of her spouse. Four people died last night when a self-driving rideshare van's GPS malfunctioned and drove them straight into a telephone pole. AppleX is releasing a new line of smartglasses. There's a new Avengers movie out.

Chris flips through the local section in frustration, not expecting to find anything that he really wants to know, but disappointed anyway. Clearly, it's a better future than the one he'd come from: magic is obviously still a secret, and there's no mention whatsoever of Wyatt or his family. But that doesn't necessarily mean that he'd fixed it, or that Wyatt still isn't… _Wyatt._ Chris will have to make contact with one of the sisters - if they're alive - to figure that out, but with no intel whatsoever as to where they are or what their situation might be, it's a risky proposition.

Why is he in Nevada? Clearly, the Chris of this timeline is living here full time - the little frat cave he'd woken up in was fairly telling - but what were the circumstances? Chris can't imagine Piper - the version of her he'd gotten to know, anyway - allowing him to move out of state, if they were living under the threat of a corrupted Wyatt, but - she could be dead, and thus unable to voice her opinion.

The thought sends a chill down Chris' spine, but he pushes through it. _You're back in the big leagues now, champ,_ he thinks. _No time for fucking around._

The phone is still his best lead. Chris stops at a corner light and takes it from his pocket, pretending to linger over a text, and tries to break the code again. His birthday doesn't work - of course it doesn't - and neither does Piper's. Rookie guesses, probably. He tries the last four of his Social and gets an error message, telling him he's been locked out, and please try again in five minutes.

He curses under his breath, returning it to his pocket. If at once you don't succeed, Paige used to say, go beg somebody smarter than you for help.

* * *

Lisa L., a Front Stage Technical Expert at the AppleX store in the Reno Central Shopping Strip, reminds Chris of Phoebe right after a business meeting: oppressively chipper, smiling so wide she doesn't notice if anyone else is smiling too. She's all too happy to help Chris with his unfortunate passcode issue, of course.

"Generally we'd need _two_ forms of ID, instead of just your Social and your credit card," says Lisa L., "but that lockscreen photo - oh my gosh, so cute! I think I can make an exception. _Obviously_ it's your phone."

Chris bites back a wince. "Yes," he says, nodding, "my lockscreen. There I am, with that adorable baby. Clearly, that is...obviously me."

"Is he yours?" Lisa L. asks, tapping intensely on the phone screen. "Or - wait, is it 'she'? I'm sorry!"

Chris takes a stab in the dark that the incredibly eerie photograph of himself holding a baby in a blue jumper is...probably, most likely, _hopefully_ not a picture of his own child. "Nephew," Chris says. "Yep, that's little...Peter. The cutest baby in the whole world, if you ask me."

"Aw," Lisa L. says, smiling. She taps a few times more. "Okay. So you know that a hard reset will wipe any data that hasn't been uploaded to your Cloud, correct?"

"But not my contacts, or my texts?" Chris checks.

"Right, no. A few more recent iMessages, maybe, but it's unlikely. Most of those get synced as soon as you reconnect to a data tower. Okay, so! Here," she says, pressing the power button on the side, and then thrusting the phone out. "It's restarting now. You'll need to use your fingerprint to activate the OS, but when it comes back up it'll be like you just bought it again. You'll have to set up your settings again, but - "

"Thanks, thank you," Chris says, nodding.

"And, just a tip." Lisa L. leans in, conspiratorial. "If you set it to unlock with biometrics, your roommate won't be able to break into it and change the password again. Just sayin'." She winks.

"That is excellent advice," Chris says earnestly. What the fuck is 'biometrics,' he wonders.

"You're welcome," she replies, pleased. "Do you want to hang out while you set it up, just in case you have any problems with - "

"No, nope! Not necessary," Chris says. "I have, uh, class?"

"Oh, right," Lisa L. says. "I hope your lecture notes didn't get wiped! You did use the auto-sync option in your Word app, right?"

Chris understands maybe like, three or four of those words. "Yes," he says. "Yes I did."

"Good!" Lisa L. chirps. "Thanks for stopping into AppleX today, Chris. I hope you had a rock star experience!"

"Oh yeah, me too," Chris says.

He barely makes it around the corner before he orbs away, itchy by the the crush of people and the unfamiliar surroundings - he's not used to a world like this, all chrome and plastic and bright fluorescent colors. 2003 had been bad enough, with the unfamiliar presence of television, cars, TV dinners - _pop music_ \- but so far, this version of 2027 is so much worse.

Chris grew up without any of those things - most of American infrastructure was in shambles by the time he was six. He vaguely remembers watching movies with Aunt Phoebe a few times, when he was really young, but even that had been a privilege. The mortal government was all but gone by the time he turned eighteen. Cars were still in use, but they were powered by magic, used only by Wyatt's followers, and phones? Forget about it. Some people had them - rich people, specifically - but it was more of a status thing. Who the hell actually _needed_ a phone, when you could buy a scrying ball from the corner practitioner's shop for the price of a single good memory, or a piece of your virgin hair?

Chris had traded away all of his good memories by the time he was twenty, on supplies and food and - finally, Bianca's ring, which he'd bought with the last memory of his mother, the clearest, strongest one he'd had left. He'd never told Bianca what he'd traded, of course, but - he hadn't ever regretted it - not until he'd gone back to the past, anyway. It was a terrible and genius idea to rest an economic system on, really, because you didn't _forget_ the memory, you just...stopped feeling it. It became distant in your own head, a dry fact instead of a full, living event that had guided your life. It was the emotion that the witch doctors wanted - that's what was valuable. Plus, you could always make more good memories, right? A never ending source of income that you could generate all on your own.

Yeah fucking right. No wonder the world just rolled right over, the second Wyatt asked: nobody had enough passion left to care.

Chris thinks about that memory now, ducking through the unfamiliar crowds on a strange, alien sidewalk: Mom, standing at the kitchen counter, cutting up strawberries. Every few minutes reaching down and giving him one to eat. Smiling, humming. Her hands are wet from the juice, and there's a breeze coming through the window. Chris can smell the rosemary plant in the planter on the sill.

It could be a scene from a novel he's describing, for all that it moves him. Chris knew that it'd be his greatest obstacle against his goals in 2003, knew that it would unnerve and put off his mother and her sisters: that coldness that was native to every being in his time, the removal from your own self. He'd thought that maybe, possibly, he was getting it back bit by bit, but who even knows? Had they warmed up to him because he was warming up, becoming more human again in their presence? Or had they simply done it once they knew who he was, knew their obligation and responsibility to him?

Doesn't matter anymore, Chris reminds himself, and ducks into a coffee shop to sit down. The game is different, now. (Different, again.)

* * *

The very first thing Chris discovers from the phone is that he has a fiance, and it's not Bianca. Unwelcome news, to say the least.

The longest text log is with a contact labelled "Mimi," but in the messages themselves, Chris - the other Chris, that is - addresses her as "Miranda." Nickname? Alias?

Who cares. The texts themselves are boring - nothing. Teenage bullshit. Chris scrolls quickly, annoyed about all of it. What kind of person is he, in this time? The type of person who calls his future wife "bb," apparently.

The calendar app is littered with wedding-related appointments - he is, at this very moment, he discovers, skipping a meeting with a florist. The most recent text from Mimi/Miranda is a long line of question marks, followed by the message, _where are u, are u okay?_ There are three missed calls, as well. Chris ignores them.

Other contacts include an "Aunt P1" and "Aunt P2" (which one is the superior P, Chris wonders? Paige or Phoebe?) and contacts for "Mom" and "Dad," which give Chris a deep, aching bolt of relief. Lots of other names he doesn't recognize, and finally, down at the bottom of the list, one he was both hoping for and dreading: Wyatt.

There's a text log for him, but it's far, far down the list. Chris refuses to fuck around and just opens it, not giving himself time to second guess, but - it's nothing. The same normal back and forth that you'd expect from a pair of normal, boring brothers. Chris frowns, reading the messages intently, searching for the catch, but -

 _lol did you watch the new ep of Harry Potter last night?_ is followed by _hahahaha don't tell Paige but yeah_ , followed by an incomprehensible argument about some character who killed another character, what the fuck ever. Further back, Wyatt asks: _u coming out bro?_ and the other Chris has replied with three smiley faces. Even further than that: _happy birthday! Check ur trunk nerd and don't tell me I never bought you anything. Love you, man. Happy twenty-fourth._

Chris sets the phone down on the table, and just breathes for a second, watching as the screen dims, and then finally goes dark. The world around him seems to be in slow motion, and Chris feels the magnitude of what's happened, for the first time since he woke up.

He's in a new world, with a new Wyatt. A world where they grew up as brothers - _real_ brothers, who cared about each other - and Chris doesn't remember any of it. Chris is sitting here in a body that doesn't actually belong to him, in a life that he doesn't even want, and he has no idea why or how it happened.

"Fuck," Chris says, in sudden realization, and immediately turns the phone off. Then, moving it into his lap below the table, he mutters a quick spell and fries it from the inside out.

All thoughts of making contact with the sisters disappear, and Chris quickly gets up and leaves the coffee shop, dropping the now-useless phone in a trash can by the door. He needs to leave, and he needs to do it now, before they get worried and start to track him. He needs money, and potion ingredients, and some food, probably - eventually, anyway, but if getting into the phone was difficult, he can only imagine getting cash out of the other Chris' bank account will be impossible. Do banks even _exist_ , in this 2027? Or do people just have...chips in their arms or some other weird shit like that? He's got no idea.

He stops at a corner, pulling the hood of his sweatshirt up, trying to stay calm. He's at a huge disadvantage here, and the only way to make up the difference is to wing it until he figures it out. He needs...a plan. He needs somewhere he can sit down, and think, and write a cloaking spell. He needs to...eat something, and drink some water, and calm down. He needs Bianca. _God_ , he misses Bianca.

What would she do, if she were here? Chris closes his eyes and thinks. _Calm down, hotshot,_ she'd say, probably, first thing. Then she'd kiss the side of his head and tell him what to do.

 _Money first. You're one of the most powerful magic users on the planet, use your head! Be quick, be discreet, and get that cloaking spell done, babe. One problem at a time._

Chris takes a deep breath, and a step forward. Just one at a time is all he's ever been able to do.

* * *

Chris orbs to Chicago, mostly because he saw a picture of Millennium Park in the newspaper, so he's relatively sure he's not going to split his atoms in two trying to go somewhere that doesn't exist anymore. He pickpockets a teacher leading a group of teenagers down the sidewalk, and uses the wad of cash - some poor kid's vacation money, probably - to buy a new set of clothes, and a few cheap, refrigerated sandwiches from a Target. Then he finds another coffee shop, buys a bottle of water and asks to borrow a pen and some paper, and writes a quick-and-dirty cloaking spell which he casts in the bathroom, muttering as softly as he can and avoiding his own eye in the mirror.

All he has in his wallet are the other Chris' credit cards, which he rips apart and throws away, and the normal detritus that can be found in a young idiot's wallet: old receipts, scraps of paper, a single condom, and a bunch of dirt. Chris spreads it across the table and studies it with depressed resignation: this is all he owns in the world now. He's certainly been in worse situations, sure. But still - it's depressing.

He's not going to take anything from the Halliwells here, and he's certainly not going to take anything else that belongs to the other Chris, other than what he's already got. Whether this is a temporary situation or a permanent one, he's the interloper here, the intruder that's taken over a life that isn't his: he won't make it worse.

It could be an illusion - but all the more reason to stay away, if that's the case. Whatever demon or being that has the power to do something this elaborate, this _cruel_ \- it's likely after the sisters, and the obvious play is to get Chris to lead it to them. No - the smarter option is to stay unpredictable, keep out of sight as much as possible. If he was brought here deliberately, by someone evil or otherwise, Chris certainly isn't going to make it easy on them.

And if it's an accident? Chris considers: he could have died in the past, and ended up here. Most of the theory on time travel postulates that if you die outside your natural time, you cease to exist altogether - but...the theory could be wrong. Or maybe the Chris of _this_ timeline died - had a stroke in his sleep, poisoned by carbon monoxide or something, and in trying to survive, his magic...reached out somehow, and found another version of itself.

It's not any more ludicrous than any of the other possibilities, he guesses. Either way - Chris thinks of the text messages again, the faceless Mimi who is probably just now knocking on the door of that ratty loft in Reno, wondering where her fiance is, and winces. He couldn't fake it. There's no way on hell he could pull it off, and it would be...crueler. Even more so than what's been done to him.

Disappearing without a trace isn't much nicer, but Chris doesn't see a better option. Still - he uses a bit more of his cash on a small notebook - he's lucky he found one of the good pocket ones, they're handy for on-the-fly spellcrafting - and writes a note: _I'm safe. Please don't look for me. I'm very sorry. If my parents ask, tell them I'm in Valhalla._

He mails it to his own address, in Reno, and tells himself it's enough. Or - the best he can do, anyway. It only halfway feels like a lie.


	2. Chapter 2

The first few weeks are rough: Chris is out of shape. Too used to a dependable bed, and predictable threats.

He steals to get by, at first, moving to a new city every few days, layering cloaking and anti-scrying spells one by one until he's got a decent bit of power going. He's been wary of trying to go to the Underworld, not knowing what to expect, but after a run-in with a Darklighter in Ohio he finally risks it. What the hell, right? Darklighters can't even decide what to wear on their own - there's gotta be somebody down there calling the shots, and if they're unoriginal enough to scry for orb signatures, then it's nothing Chris can't handle.

The Underworld itself isn't immune to the passage of time, but it does move differently there - sometimes faster, sometimes slower, depending on where you are - and it didn't start out as evil's coolest hangout, either. It's actually just a simple pocket dimension, accidentally opened by a miscast curse from a low-level demon who, having suddenly found himself coming into some real estate, remodeled it in the style of what everyone thought Hell looked like at the time (thanks a lot, _Dante_ ) and then made everyone who visited call him "the Source of all Evil." After a couple generations of assassinations and power-grubbing and kiss-ass scribes who were better at hyperbole than honesty, the name sort of stuck.

Not all of it is medieval torches and dirty caves, though - some of it is actually kind of nice. There's an entire valley run by a couple nephilim that lost their taste for destruction a few centuries ago, and now run a sort of B&B style set up for whoever has the balls - and the cash - to stay. Another part of it is a river that everyone calls the River Styx - which is completely inaccurate by the way, the real Styx is in Iceland - that for whatever reason creates a sort of magic-null field. Since everybody who gets near it is essentially mortal, it's been used for decades as a neutral meeting ground for good and evil alike - and also, as a popular honeymoon destination. There are some really interesting flowers that grow up through the water that work as a natural aphrodisiac, and there's a warlock down there who makes them into a liquor that will fuck you and your partner up for _weeks._ (Quite literally speaking.)

There are restaurants and clubs, entire sections of it that have been claimed as living quarters by various creatures and beings, and of course - the real intense parts, closest to the big-name demons' territories, that are sort of a free-for-all, 24/7 battleground. But there are neutral areas too, and places claimed and populated by what Chris thinks of as the grey genre of magical beings: dwarves and nymphs, chaos sprites, untethered spirits, and contractors like the Phoenixes - witches and practitioners who claim no stake in the longest, most righteous war-that-will-never-end between good and evil. A lot of them keep to themselves, don't bother anybody. Most of the ones Chris is familiar with don't even hurt anyone - they just want to stay out of it, really. Which is, he's always thought, totally understandable.

Of course - it could be completely different now, in this version of the future. But Chris was able to navigate it well enough in 2003, and - anyway, he's got way better odds down there than _up there_ , where he _definitely_ doesn't have any friends. If there's even anybody Up There at all.

He starts cautiously, orbing first to a spot that has always been notoriously and staunchly Neutral, due to its popularity with the angels and demons who guard the Hollow - and it's much the same as Chris remembers. Maybe a bit more crowded, than usual - but there's some sort of concert going on, it seems, and a bunch of leprechauns muttering with each other around a poker table - maybe it's festival season or something? At any rate, nobody bothers him. Nobody recognizes him either, which was the secondary concern he'd had.

His second stop is a Seer's den that he used to frequent in 2003, as a sort of test: this Seer is immortal, and if this is the same timeline that he'd just left, and not a completely different dimension altogether, then she'll definitely remember him. Maybe she'll even be willing to help, if she's in the right mood. But - Chris was always very good at putting her in the right mood.

Seer Dens are usually styled up to look like _I Dream of Jeannie_ on hallucinogens, but this one - Zazi, one of the oldest and most dependable Seers still around - never had much patience for all of that nonsense. Her den always just looked like an office. Word on the street, back in 2003, was that she used to be a Whitelighter, but nobody who's actually met her ever believed it.

Zazi's den in 2027 still looks like an office, but the signs of wear and tear have emerged: the wallpaper's peeling, the lights are flickering, the illusion spells obviously in need of renewal. There's a water sprite sitting at the receptionist's desk leafing through a copy of _Teen Breathe_ magazine, and she barely looks up when Chris enters.

"She's not seeing clients today," says the sprite. She flips a page, not looking up. "I can take a message."

Chris frowns, leaning against the reception desk to get a look at the magazine. The text is backwards. "Is she in tomorrow?"

"Unlikely." Another page flip. The clock on the wall behind her is ticking a shade too fast, the hour hand moving in a slow, continuous loop.

Chris taps his fingers on the desk. "Well, okay, take a message then. Tell her to suck my dick."

The clock hand stops.

"Excuse me?" asks the sprite.

"You heard me," Chris says, cocking his head and leaning in close on one elbow. "Tell Zazi the Seer, Clairvoyant of the Third Dimension, All-Seeing Sister of the Kilchee Tribe, to get down on her ancient, knobby knees and suck my big, fat, hard, hairy, monster co - "

A fireball comes zooming out of the inner office, and Chris ducks into a crouch, already laughing. When he stands up straight again, the sprite and her magazine is gone, and the reception area is now brand new again, gleaming and perfect.

"You motherfucker," says Zazi's voice, booming out from an intercom phone on the desk. "Chris Perry, is that you?"

"Zaz," Chris says, laughing again. He leans over the desk and picks up the phone. "Been awhile, you cranky old bitch. Where are you hiding?"

"Chris Perry," Zazi says, still sounding a little shell shocked. "You've gotta be shitting me. I thought you were dead."

"Guess you thought wrong." Chris crooks the phone between his shoulder and his ear and grabs the open appointment book. Every hour from "9 AM" to "Feeding Time" is now pencilled in with his own name: _Christopher Perry/Halliwell (Whitelighter/Motherfucker)_. "You gonna let me in or what?"

"How do I know it's you?" Zazi sounds suspicious, but not overly so. Not that she has reason to be worried about her _safety,_ or anything. "Tell me something only Chris Perry would know."

"Barbas the Fear Demon was a power bottom," Chris says.

"Whatever," Zazi says. "Everyone knows that."

Chris grins to himself, throwing the book aside. He looks around the office with affection; she even has the same trick door to the bathroom as he remembers. That one leads to a chimera pit - the actual bathroom is labeled 'Water Heater.' "Come on, Zaz. Would I have found my way here if it was a trick? You know it's me."

There's a short silence, and then the intercom shuts off. Chris replaces the phone in its cradle carefully, and then - as if thanking him for his courtesy - the office melts away into Zazi's _actual_ den: a glittering, golden cave, stacked high with mounds of glittering rubies and emeralds, sacks of gold coins older than most of the continents.

Only the best of caves, for the last of the living dragons: Zazi the Clairvoyant herself is curled up on a silver carpet, her scales gleaming from the light of her collection of antique lamps. What she'll never tell a regular client - but she's told Chris - is that the real bulk of her amassed fortune is actually in real estate and collectibles. Gold and precious stone don't get you anywhere near the kind of cash that a Tiffany floral desk lamp at a Christie's auction will.

"Jesus H. Christ," says Zazi, snorting a bulbous cloud of green smoke out of her nostrils, "it really is you. How the fuck did you get here?"

"You're asking me?" Chris says, incredulous. He moves a bit closer, painstakingly picking his through a maze of antique couches, brass headboards, and open trunks overflowing with Beanie Babies and Funko Pops. "Zaz. It's good to see you, old friend."

"Oh, Chris," Zazi says affectionately. She moves forward, resting her weight on one of her talons, and leans her great, dangerous head downward to allow Chris to pat her snout. He gives it an affectionate scratch, and one of her wings twitches in delight. "I thought you were a goner for sure. What's happened, how did you get here?"

"That's what I came to ask you." Chris gives her one last pat, then settles down on a fainting couch far enough away that she can look at him comfortably. "The last thing I remember was in 2003, just a normal day. I woke up here, in...this Chris's body." He gestures down at himself. "I wasn't even sure this was the same timeline until you recognized me."

"Same timeline, sure," Zazi says, "but who can be positive about these things. I'm not exactly a gold standard of temporal stability, you know."

"You're the closest I've got to one," Chris says. "What happened to me, Zaz? In 2003, I mean. Did you see anything, hear anything?"

"No." Zazi sadly snorts out another billow of green smoke. "The last time I saw you was that day you came to ask about the Elder Gideon. Then next I heard, he was dead - vanquished by the Charmed Ones, for trying to turn their eldest son." She flutters one of her wings restlessly. "I figured that was your doing. But I never saw you again - not until little you was born, anyhow. But you've never been to see me, and so I didn't think it was… _you._ "

"It wasn't," Chris says absently, his mind spinning. "So it _was_ Gideon."

"Yes," Zazi says gravely, "I'm sorry I couldn't See it earlier, Chris. I would have told you, if I had."

"I know," Chris says reassuringly, "I know that, Zaz. Don't worry."

Gideon. Chris'd had his suspicions from the beginning, but was afraid of the implications, and half-convinced it was just his own biases getting in the way. That chip on his shoulder, courtesy of his father, interfering once again.

"What about the Charmed Ones?" Chris swallows. "My brother. What's the situation here?"

"You haven't been to see them?" Zazi cocks her head.

"No. I haven't seen anyone, told anyone anything."

"No wonder they've been on such a terror lately." Chris's heart skips a beat. "They're all alive. Your father is the sitting principality of the Elders, and has been for decades now. Your brother is as good as any of them are." Zazi tilts her head again, her voice quiet, as it is when she's being kind. "They've been looking for you."

"I know," Chris says. He's felt - and avoided - their attempts.

"You're going to have to face it eventually. You truly don't remember anything, from this life?" Zazi asks.

"Not a goddamn thing," Chris says. He stands up, so he can look her in the eye a bit better. "It's as if I went to sleep in 2003 and woke up here. I remember asking you about Gideon, but I don't remember confronting him, his death, _my_ death - if I died at all - I didn't even know what age I was until I looked in a mirror. Zazi, you've got to tell me _something_ , please tell me you can See what's happened to me. Even a piece of it - a clue. A hint, _anything_."

"Memories from a world that no longer exists," Zazi says thoughtfully. She's silent for a moment, breathing smoke in and out of her great nostrils, her tail scraping thoughtfully against the golden wall behind her. "I fear whatever has happened to bring you here, Chris Perry, is beyond my Sight, but I can tell you this: you're not the only one who made it."

"What?" Chris sits back down abruptly.

"At first, it was just a few demons," Zazi says, her voice taking on the quality of a prophecy: distant and muted, as if coming from faraway. Since she speaks through psychic communication anyway, not exactly having vocal chords - or a mouth for that matter - to utilize, it's not all that different from her normal voice - though Chris has always been able to tell the difference. "Nobody noticed if they had different assumptions about who was in charge, where they could go and what they could do...and they adjusted quickly. But then...more came, and more after that. All of them creatures of evil, and all of them loyal to a man who no longer existed."

Chris tries to control his breathing, lacing his hands together between his knees.

"The Charmed Ones knew what it was they fought, when they were finally approached, but they did not know why. They hid the truth from their sons, fearing for their well-being." Zazi reaches out one wing, a gesture of comfort. "One son found out anyway."

 _Which son?_ Chris thinks desperately, but knows better than to ask.

"Others awakened, as the sons grew older. Allies, neutral parties - even mortals. None of them dared to approach the Halliwells, but they are here, same as you. Charmed Son, heir to a lost world: you are not alone. But you will not find the one you covet until you learn to close your eyes."

Chris waits until it's clear that she's finished, her head bowed, partially obscured by her own green smoke. "The one I covet?" he asks, his heart pounding. "The one I covet is dead."

"Not in this life," Zazi says, kind again. "It was game over for you both, kiddo. But you woke up at the start again. Sometimes," Zazi says, drawing her wings back in around herself, "sometimes that's how it works. Second chances aren't always happy endings. Sometimes it's just the same game, all over again."

"Close my eyes," Chris mutters, letting his face fall into his hands. It could mean anything, really: that's the frustrating part of prophecy. Anything from profound advice that will only make sense when the right, fateful moment comes, to a directive to take a nap. "Close my eyes. Zaz, help me out here."

"That's all I got, Chris Perry," Zazi says apologetically. "It is good to see you, though. Goddamn, the last couple decades have been boring. Not that I preferred when it was all doom gloom and apocalypse around here, but at least I had more company."

"Business is down?" Chris asks, hearing it come out a bit sharply. "That may be my fault. I destroyed your entry in my mother's Book of Shadows, to obscure what I was doing in 2003."

Zazi snorts. "If one family's Book truly had that much influence over my reputation, I'd have gone bankrupt centuries ago," she says. "No - it's this scrying business. Some witch - an acquaintance of your family's, of course - started it up about five years ago. Prophecy for sale." She shakes her head in disdain. "Nobody needs the real thing anymore when they can buy comforting lies for the price of their bad dreams."

"Bad dreams?" Chris feels a chill. It's so similar to what his original timeline was like, it can't be a coincidence. Especially not after the revelation she's just given. "Was it one of the ones who crossed over from my timeline?"

"You tell me," Zazi says, pinning him in place with one giant, emerald eye. "Billie Jenkins is her name. Word is she's your _aunt._ " She snorts again, billowing smoke around his knees. "Like you didn't already have enough of those."

Chris feels his heart harden at the name. "Tell me about it," he says darkly.


	3. Chapter 3

The prospect of Bianca being alive, being _here,_ with the memories that make her his, is a tempting idea - too tempting for Chris to focus on. Zazi had said that she would only appear once he learned how to "close his eyes" - so the best he can do, he figures, is not to dwell on it. It would be just like her, to show up when he stopped looking, anyway.

His only other avenue then, aside from giving up and going back to Reno to face the music, is Billie Jenkins: his mother's famous protege, who has apparently gone into business for herself in this timeline. A shady business, that is - the equivalent of a street magician, duping tourists out of twenties on the sidewalk, if the rumors he hears are to be believed. Delivering just enough results to keep people coming back, especially at her ridiculously affordable price compared to _real_ Seers - but filled with enough bullshit to obscure whatever answer you're looking for. So again: you have to come back. Giving up your nightmares one by one, until all you've got left are the good ones, and that's when the real sad stories start.

Chris wants to think his mother wouldn't approve of something like that, but who knows what Piper's become, in the past twenty-four years? The woman he was getting to know in 2003 still seemed frustratingly inconsistent; he could rarely predict what her opinion on something would be. And who knows how the years have changed the moral standards of the Charmed Ones? Maybe they think it's alright, if she's only scamming bad guys. And the Halliwells' definition of "bad guy" has always been notoriously strict.

Either way, if the Billie of this world is anything like the one he knew in his original timeline, then chances are the rumors are true - and not exaggerated by much. Chris grew up with Billie, his mother's trusty witch doctor, who was always hanging around, making a nuisance of herself. As he got older, and the world grew more and more dire, Billie only grew more unpredictable - making deals with Wyatt's men, working spells for anyone who had the cash, no matter the ethical implications of what they were asking. Then when Phoebe died, she dropped all pretense and opened up a practitioner's shop - in Phoebe's house, no less, with an official license from Wyatt and everything. She advertised herself as _Piper Halliwell's Witch Doctor_ \- which, fine, that's exactly what she'd been, but it still made Chris sick to see her advertisements plastered all over the city.

She hadn't even waited a week after Aunt Phoebe's murder before moving her shit in. Chris never saw her in person after that - he went underground with the Resistance immediately after, too vulnerable without Phoebe's protection, lost in his grief for her loss, and never learned what became of Billie. Probably living large, with Wyatt's help and his dead family's reputation, he thinks bitterly.

Is there much of a difference, between taking memories and taking dreams? Chris doesn't think so. This timeline's biggest blessing is probably that magic is still a secret: the entire earth would run itself into the ground, if everyone had access to such a thing. But dreams are more unpredictable: they can be much more powerful, but it's also much harder to harness the power for anything. They're too slippery: just thoughts, fantasies, inner demons, wrapped in shadows. Chris likes his chances.

Billie's shop is above ground, of course, in San Francisco - _of course_ \- but far enough away from the Manor that Chris doesn't feel _terribly_ reckless. Who even knows if they still live in the Manor, anyway. In the original 2027, the place was a safety hazard in and of itself, from years of explosions, fireballs, potion disasters...you name it.

Chris uses the last of the cash Zazi had given him - a _profound_ gesture of friendship from a dragon, even if it was only about a hundred bucks - to get himself a stable shapeshifting potion, but he doesn't bother to cloak anything else. The Billie he knew wasn't naturally psychic, but even if this version can sense power here...well, he wants her to know how strong he is. Especially if this _is_ the Billie he knew.

They've got a few things to talk about, if that's the case.

He looks like an old man, as he walks inside - your typical New Age front, not out of type to the mortals in San Francisco - but he spots her instantly: a glamorous blonde woman, well into middle age but still dressing like she's twenty, whose shoulders stiffen at his approach. She's sitting behind a cashier's counter, and she rises to her feet as he walks up, her eyes sharp.

"Can I help you?" she asks. There's a triquetra pendant hanging from a chain around her neck. Chris eyes it in disgust.

"Are you Billie Jenkins?" Chris asks. His disguised voice sounds perfectly natural to him, but he can see she sees right through it, her eyes narrowing.

"Who's asking?" Billie asks, crossing her arms.

Chris tosses a dreamcatcher on the counter in lieu of an answer. He'd put one of his milder nightmares in it - one of the vague, ominous ones, where you can't see faces. Billie's eyebrows pinch together, staring at it. "Heard you were in the business of answering questions."

"I don't answer questions for people I don't know," Billie says, but she's still looking at the dreamcatcher. It's a nice one, quality, for catching the big nightmares that you wouldn't waste on something small - what the rest of Zazi's cash had gotten him. "Name, address, political affiliation…?" She snaps red-tipped fingers in his face.

"None of your business, fuck off, and Democrat," Chris answers. "You want this or not?"

Billie huffs, snatching the catcher and stashing it out of sight before he has a chance to grab it back. "Well, at least you're a rude _liberal_ ," she grumbles. Reaching below the counter, she brings out a basic, ordinary scrying ball, opaque from lack of magic, with a plain wooden base. "You'll need to at least tell me who referred you. I have a loyalty program," she chirps, cocking her thumb at a sign nailed to the wall above a display of sage bundles: _Refer a Friend and Get a Free Consultation!_

"They didn't exactly give me their business card," Chris says.

Billie rolls her eyes. "Fine. Put your hands here." She gestures to the sides of the ball, flattened slightly by a sander. "Push some of your magic into it. So it can get to know you. You do… _have_ magic, right?"

Chris sighs. So far the only thing this conversation has done has annoy him. He's going to have to reveal something to learn anything. "A bit," he says dryly, and lays hands on the scrying ball. It instantly wipes itself clean, turning translucent, and glows gently with the soft, blue light of his magic.

Billie's eyes widen at the color. Whitelighter magic. He can see her shock. "Oh," she says, badly covering up her surprise, "well - okay then. Right, hand that back." She pushes his hands away, gaining her ground again as she slips into a schtick. "What question do you want? Nothing complicated - yes or no answers only - nothing from more than thirty years into the past or future, and nothing involving ritual dismemberment, weird sex, or bugs." She smiles, fake sweet. "Not that I couldn't answer those, it's just - you know. The gross factor." She wiggles her fingers at him.

"Thirty years?" Chris asks, pretending to think about it. "Seems like an arbitrary time frame."

Billie shrugs. "I can do that too, but it'll cost you another dream. A good one," she adds, cocking one eyebrow. "That's what we call the 'gold level' of pricing."

"Mine's under thirty years," Chris tells her. Technically, anyway. "Do I speak it out loud?"

"Obviously," Billie says, rolling her eyes. If she were chewing gum, he thinks, she'd be snapping it.

"How did Phoebe Halliwell die?" Chris asks, and watches, with the satisfaction of a correct guess, as her face goes instantly pale.

"Wh - what?" Billie asks.

"You heard me." Chris doesn't move, watching her hands - ready to duck at the slightest movement.

"Phoebe Halliwell isn't dead," Billie snaps, moving slightly into a fighting stance. Chris tenses. "There. Question answered. Now you answer one of mine: who the fuck are you?"

"She's not dead now, but she died once, and you were there," Chris says, putting all of the forgotten, pushed-down anger he can muster into it. "What happened to her, Billie? Who was it? That's my fucking question. I paid the price, now answer me."

Billie snaps her wrist, and the scrying ball goes flying, straight at his face. Chris ducks out of its way, going for cover behind a bookshelf. Another snap of her arm, and the shelf goes hurtling towards the wall, taking him with it, knocking his breath away. Chris orbs out at the last second and reappears in the back corner of the store. He uses his own telekinesis to send the light fixture above her head falling towards her, ducking for cover again when she yells in anger, rolling out of the way, the entire shop practically trembling from the force of their magic.

"Show your face, Whitelighter!" Billie shouts. From the direction of the sound, she's probably still near the front counter, but Chris can't be sure. He doesn't want to truly hurt her, anyway - not until he gets some answers. "I told you assholes not to bother me anymore - I don't remember anything!"

The Whitelighters know? _Great,_ Chris thinks. "I'm not," he says, pausing to duck a flying piece of cement - probably from the ceiling - catching a glimpse of her hair in a window, "a goddamn _Whitelighter!_ " He breaks his cover long enough to hit her directly, sending her flying back against the bookshelf she'd attempted to kill him with - not hard enough to kill her, but enough to get his point across. "Do most Whitelighters you know have telekinesis? Use your fucking head, witch doctor."

"One or two I know of," Billie says, and groans out loud, rolling out of a pile of wooden rubble. She sees Chris approaching and holds up her hands. "Wait, wait - truce. _Time out,_ okay? Jesus. I'm not nineteen anymore, I think you broke my collarbone."

Chris continues approaching, ignoring her flinch, and the way she cringes back from him as he kneels at her side, her face angry and distrustful. "Calm down," he tells her, reaching out his hands to heal her. She stays still, allowing him to get close, but still eyes him warily as he pulls back. "Ready to talk now?"

"Not really, jackass," Billie says, still glaring. She's still crouching in the remnants of her bookshelf. "Who are you? Your real name."

"Still none of your business," Chris snaps, and slams his boot on her wrist when she twitches in response. "Ah ah - none of that. Take it easy."

"Asshole," Billie hisses, gritting her teeth in pain, but goes still. She glares up at him, blood smeared across her temple. "You - ugh - you Resistance pricks are all the same, huh? At least with Wyatt's people I could get through a meeting without any blood on my dress. And that's really saying something, for demons."

Chris had known the second he'd walked through the door that this was the Billie of his original timeline, but it still makes him shudder, to hear it confirmed so plainly. "Because Wyatt's men were so _civilized,_ " he sneers.

Billie rolls her eyes and slumps against the rubble, shaking her head. "Whatever. Let's just get this over with. Lemme guess: you just woke up, in a _brand new world!_ " She chirps the phrase like she's a demented cheerleader, bloody smile and all. "And you wanna know what the fuck happened. Well - join the club, cupcake! None of us know. You're not the luckiest one after all."

If there's one thing Chris has always been assured of, it's that he is definitely not 'lucky,' in any sense of the world. "How long have you been here?" he demands. She laughs, and for the first time, Chris recognizes her: that same laugh, from the annoying/endearing girl his mom had loved, their childhood babysitter. The woman who organized his mother's funeral, who cooked them dinner every night while Aunt Phoebe was out demon hunting, looking for answers. The _same exact_ laugh, when he begged her to come with him, to join the fight against the travesty Wyatt was making of the world. _Resistance? What a joke. Honey, use your head for a second. This is your big brother, for God's sake! He's saving the world! You haven't been drinking again, have you?_

Chris leans harder on her wrist, and Billie stops laughing, cutting herself off abruptly. "Ow," she says, shooting him a dirty look.

 _Did you kill my aunt?_ he thinks. He wants so badly to know the answer, despite knowing he probably never will. If it even matters, anymore.

"How long," he says flatly. Billie sighs again, blowing her bangs out of her face.

"Seven years," she says, "give or take. Woke up here - the other me really did run a New Age shop, you know." She scoffs. "Sage and crystals and shit. No imagination!"

There's an unhinged quality to her speech that's only now showing itself, under pain and stress - she's probably fairly good at hiding it, normally. "Do the Halliwells know who you are?"

She laughs again, on the tinge of hysteria. "Of _course_ they do. Little miss psychic and her traveling troupe of beautiful babies - can't hide shit from her, never could, of course, nosy, overbearing - "

Chris releases her wrist, dragging the sole of his boot across her skin meanly in the process. She hisses, snapping it back against her chest. "How many of us are there?" he asks, leaning down and using telekinesis to pin her shoulders back against the ragged edge of the bookshelf. "How many have you met? Is it all Wyatt's people?"

"All kinds," Billie chokes out, glaring. "My people, your people, all kinds of people. Dead people." Another laugh, her eyes rolling towards the ceiling. "I see dead people."

Chris watches her giggle to herself for a moment, his stomach churning. Five years, between when he left Billie standing there in Phoebe's house, and when he went back to the past and changed it. Five _years_. "What did he do to you, Billie?" he asks. She snorts, shaking her head in derision. "What did Wyatt do?"

"What would Wyatt do?" Billie asks. She snorts, wiggling her shoulders against the force of his magic. "What _wouldn't_ he do, am I right?"

"I'm sorry," Chris says, and releases her. She slumps again, this time in exhaustion, cradling her bruised wrist against her stomach. "I'm sorry, Billie."

Her age is all too apparent now, in the way she crawls painfully to her feet. "Whatever, dude," she says, staggering past him to the counter. She grabs a bottle of pills out of her open purse - miraculously untouched by the fight - and swallows them dry.

Chris needs to leave. "Don't tell anyone I was here," he threatens, half-heartedly.

Billie rolls her eyes at him one last time. "Get fucked," she says. Fair enough.

* * *

He doesn't owe her anything, truly. He knows this in the same way he knows that Phoebe had died because she'd discovered something about Wyatt that he wasn't ready for the world to know, that Bianca had never intended to betray him, only to buy him more time, that whatever his family in this world might know, going to them now would be a mistake. Base level, instinctual knowledge: Billie Jenkins was never truly his ally. But he still can't stop thinking about the blood on her face, and the way she cried out when she hit the shelf. He did that to her. This is a woman who sang him to sleep when he was a baby, and he just tortured information out of her like it was nothing.

He'd done some research, before showing up: the Billie of this timeline had been completely innocuous. A light witch, who ran a New Age shop in the Castro. Friend of the Halliwells, a known ally, having fought by their side countless times. That Billie might have been an ally, maybe even a _friend_ \- but that Billie was erased by the woman who laughed in Chris' face. It's the worst, most tragic way to end a good life: replaced by a nightmare version of yourself.

His own presence here is the same: he's got no right to be here, to take over the other Chris' life. What good is he, a refugee from a dead world? He cringes, thinking of his reaction to the texts with the fiance: what a bastard he is. Making fun of it, like it was stupid, like it was _childish._ He doesn't belong here. He doesn't belong _anywhere._ Unhinged by a lifetime of war and loss, stripping his emotions away one by one, just to stay alive. He doesn't know how to live in a world like this one, a normal world. He could barely stand it in 2003, he's got less than no hope here.

It isn't until he senses the incoming presence of someone orbing in that he realizes his mistake: he's orbed to the top of the Golden Gate Bridge, without thinking twice about it. Where he's been going for almost a year now, whenever he's upset. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

He knows who it is without even having to look. His father always had a way of making his presence bluntly known in silence, without even having to say a word.

"Dad." Chris doesn't move, watching him out of the corner of his eye. He wants to look, but he also doesn't. He wants very badly to know what Leo looks like as a middle aged man, because it's a sight he's never seen before. But he also...doesn't.

"Chris." Leo hovers just over his right shoulder; Chris can see that he's wearing Elder robes. Probably that's how he was able to sense Chris' location through the cloaking spells. "Chris, you...are you okay? God, we've been worried _sick._ "

"You didn't get my note?" Chris asks neutrally. He knows this is the same timeline he's just come from; Leo should have all his memories of Chris' time in 2003. But if he didn't catch the reference to Valhalla...something must have happened, or - or maybe Zazi remembers because she's...because she's _Zazi._ Maybe this isn't the same timeline at _all_ -

"Note? No. You sent us a note?" Chris finally turns to look, and instantly regrets it. Leo looks exactly the same as he did in 2003. _Exactly_ the same - he hasn't aged a single day. Chris' stomach drops to his feet. "Chris, what's going on, where have you been? You disappear into thin air with no word or anything - your mother's been - "

"You're still young," Chris interrupts, in disbelief. "And you're _still_ an Elder. All these years? You didn't - you haven't allowed yourself to age, with Mom?"

"What?" Leo looks down at himself, then back up at Chris, almost comically.

"That is actually the opposite of what I intended, when I put you up there," Chris snaps, unable to help himself. "Two - three months, tops. But you always had to go above and beyond, didn't you?"

All the color bleeds out of Leo's face. "Chris," he says, with dawning horror. " _Chris._ "

"Yeah. It's me." Chris turns away, rubbing his hands over his face. "The _other_ me, I should say."

A fraught silence descends, broken only by the dim sounds of the traffic far below their feet. Chris and Leo spent several frozen hours like this, in this very spot twenty-four years ago, unable to breach a gap that neither of them would admit to wanting to cross.

"You remembered," Leo says, sounding wrecked. He stumbles down into a half-crouch, against the great red beam, behind Chris' back. "Oh, Lord in heaven."

Chris snorts, despite himself. He always sounds like a 1940s matron, when he's truly surprised, which isn't often.

He should leave. But he has to be careful now, so Leo won't track him. This was really, really stupid, he thinks with no small amount of chagrin.

"Chris, I can't believe you're...it's you," Leo says, looking dazed. "What...do you remember?"

"Not much," Chris tells him honestly. He perches himself just on the edge of the beam, ready to jump if he has to. But no reason not to get some information in the meantime. "I heard about Gideon."

"Yes...Gideon." Leo's face darkens. "You don't remember what happened? He _killed_ you."

"Oh," Chris says, nonplussed. "Well, that's...different."

"He was working with his own counterpart from a mirror dimension," Leo says, "we went there, met our own counterparts...you were watching Wyatt and Gideon showed up, in the attic...took you by surprise...you really don't remember?"

"The last day in 2003 I remember," Chris says, "was absolutely, one hundred percent normal. It was a few weeks after the spider demon; Piper was only a few months along in the pregnancy. Nothing special happened - I did some research, ate. Whatever. Went to bed, and then woke up here, in that little bachelor pad in Reno."

Leo's face darkens. "I see."

" _Mirror dimension_?" Chris asks, incredulous. "God, he really was a psycho."

"You don't know the half of it," Leo says, pained. "But - listen, Chris. God, there's so much to say, I don't even know where to start." He runs one hand through his hair, ruffling it even further. "This is not exactly what I expected to find. No offense."

"Probably had a whole speech prepared about wedding jitters, huh?" Chris asks, bemused. "Or maybe - was the theory that I got hoodwinked by some warlock or something?"

"That's been P.J.'s guess," Leo admits. "Everyone else just figured it was cold feet - we didn't think you'd let yourself get caught off-guard by anything truly nefarious."

Chris narrows his eyes. "I don't know who that is," he says evenly. "P.J.?"

Leo sobers. "Your cousin," he says gravely. "Phoebe's eldest. Chris - "

"I don't remember any of it," Chris says, cutting him off before he can say it. "Not a thing. Like I said, I went to sleep there, and woke up here. I don't know what happened to your son."

"You _are_ my son," Leo says, through gritted teeth.

Chris doesn't bother correcting him. "I'm not coming back to the Manor with you, Leo."

"At least come talk to your mother," Leo immediately says, as if he's anticipated Chris' answer. "She's been out of her mind about this. At least come show her you're alright - "

"Oh right, just pop by for a quick chat? Tell her I'm the dead one from the bad timeline, and the son she's raised for the past two decades is who knows where? That'll go over well," Chris snaps, "I'm sure I can get that over with in five, ten minutes tops."

"We don't know that your memories are gone," Leo says evenly. "It may still be possible to get them back - "

"Like you got Billie's back? Sure." Chris watches closely as Leo's face flinches with remembered pain. "I've been here almost a month, I already know most of it. They started showing up right around the time I was born, didn't they?"

That's a guess, but a correct one, judging by Leo's face. "It has nothing to do with you," he says. "And Billie - " Leo closes his eyes briefly, face creased with weariness. "That was different."

"Did she die?" Chris guesses. Another flinch; another hit. "She died, didn't she. But instead of dying physically...the other Billie took over. And you're sure this isn't what's happening with the others? The demons, the assassins...me?"

"She didn't die," Leo says.

"Don't lie to me, you're shitty at it," Chris snaps, "you're an Elder. I know you know what's going on - "

"So let me finish," Leo snipes back, for the first time seeming like the version of his father Chris had known in 2003. "She didn't _die._ She had a stroke, Chris. She was electrocuted by a shocker demon, a blood vessel burst in her head, and…" Leo shakes his head mournfully. "She was alone in her apartment, at the time. We don't know how long she'd been - before Piper found her - "

Brain dead. Chris bites the inside of his cheek, a grim suspicion starting to form.

"We healed her, of course. But when she woke up, she was...the other Billie." Leo grimaces. "Who hasn't exactly been cooperative. But she's a special case, Chris - the others who have remembered - they've all been evil. We thought it was something...the other Wyatt did. A failsafe of some kind. You told us he knew what you were doing, he knew that you were in the past…"

Chris shakes his head. "Wyatt was too arrogant to plan ahead like that," Chris says. "He was so confident that he acted like...like he'd already won. Like it was already a moot point. That was part of what made him so…"

"Terrifying?" Leo asks grimly.

 _Annoying,_ Chris had meant to say. But same thing. "They also aren't all evil, Leo," he says. "And I'm not just talking about Billie and I."

"What?" Leo asks sharply. "Have you found others?"

Chris shrugs neutrally. "I think," he says, carefully rising to his feet, "that you need to rethink your theory on why this is happening. Seems to me that this might be a much bigger problem then some leftover plan of Wyatt's."

"Chris," Leo says soberly, seeming to sense that Chris is at the edge of this conversation. "Come back to the Manor with me. We need to go at this as a group."

"No." Chris shakes his head. "That's a terrible idea and you know it, Leo."

"Your mother - "

"Stop bringing her up," Chris snaps. "You always poke the weak spot, you know that? Hasn't it ever occurred to you that that's why people don't trust you?"

Leo's mouth snaps shut with a click that's almost audible.

"You start with the good guys," Chris tells him, "and I'll tackle the demons. Find out what happened to them, Leo. Was it the same thing that happened to Billie? Look for the patterns."

"It's not a pattern," Leo says stubbornly, but his determination seems to be wavering, the terrible, unsaid thought hovering directly behind Chris' directive starting to dawn on his face.

"There has to be some kind of design," Chris says gently. His own father, the Leo who failed to raise him, would never have shown his emotions this openly. That Leo had purged himself of that kind of humanity far before Chris was old enough to notice. "That timeline, and everyone in it - including myself - should have ceased to exist the second Gideon died. Think about what the reasons could be for why it didn't. I mean, _really think,_ Leo."

"No. Wyatt is - he's not." Leo shakes his head, pressing his lips together tightly. "He's _not._ "

"I'll take your word for it," Chris says, only a little sarcastically.

Leo seems frozen in indecision, his brow furrowed. Chris shakes his head, not feeling like any less of a bastard than he had at the beginning of this conversation.

"At least send word to Mimi," Leo calls out, obviously still trying to cajole him somehow. "Your fiance. None of this is her fault, Chris, and from her perspective, her fiance has just up and left her with no word."

"I left her word," Chris says. "The note, Leo. She didn't tell you?"

Leo shifts his weight slightly, obviously discomfited. "We haven't - had a chance to talk," he says, a little stiffly.

"You haven't even _talked_ to her?" Chris asks incredulously. "How did you know I disappeared so quickly then? Wait - don't answer that," he says, holding up one hand. "I don't wanna know."

"We haven't known her that long - the engagement was very sudden," Leo persists, shaking off the discomfort. "But you owe her an explanation, at least. She seemed like a nice girl. A _mortal_ girl, Chris."

Chris snorts. "I'll send her another letter," he says.

"Chris - "

"I'll be in touch, Leo," Chris says, and steps right off the beam before Leo can say anything else, letting himself freefall into the open sky over the Bay. He waits to orb until the very last second, just to wake himself up - to feel the adrenaline start to kick in, the anticipation of a crash. It's the best part of orbing - the only part of being a Whitelighter that's actually fun, the way you can take risks without having it mean anything.

Which is, of course, the heart of the the Whitelighters' problem: when you can heal from anything, what meaning does pain have anymore? Gideon probably thought he was _helping._ Chris is sure of it.

Naturally, Wyatt had thought he was helping, too. Sometimes, that's the most reassuring thing for Chris, because he _never_ is. Somehow, somewhere along the way, that became a good thing.


	4. Chapter 4

The idea of being with anyone else feels extremely foreign to Chris; there's never been anyone else but Bianca. Romantically speaking, anyway. Sex is one thing. Sex is a tool. They both used it when they had to.

It wasn't fate, and it certainly wasn't some big dramatic love affair, good and evil, star crossed by destiny - like the way the histories talked about Phoebe and Cole Turner. It wasn't even all that hard to earn her loyalty - she'd been looking for an excuse. No human, Phoenix or otherwise, truly _wanted_ to work for Wyatt. It was more a matter of what he had on them, and the lack of any other options.

He remembers: sitting in one of her shitty little safehouses, pretending to be tied up by those pathetic magic null-cuffs, trying to convince her that the Resistance had a shot. She grilled him for almost an hour, then she made a pot of coffee, untied him, and said, "alright." And they've been together ever since.

It was more of a choice, first, a choice to stay, a choice to build something. A choice to hope for something, to believe in a chance for something peaceful, and meaningful, and real. Not that he doesn't love her. Chris would carve out his own heart for a chance to go back to that day, to push her out of the way before she had the chance to take the hit. Just a few extra seconds - that's all he would need. But - maybe it wasn't the kind of love real people have. The love of happiness, shared ambitions and dreams, laughter and skipping in the park, or what the fuck ever. They both just needed a partner, badly, and so they made themselves into whatever the other one needed. Out of necessity, and a desire for stability - someone they could depend on. Someone they could _trust,_ which in Chris' estimation is a far more intimate emotion to share than happiness, or desire. Or maybe that _is_ all love is: fuck if Chris knows for sure.

To marry another woman, to share a peaceful life with some mortal who couldn't even begin to understand - it's an extremely repulsive thought. Could he fake it, even for a second? Hold someone else with the same arms that he'd held Bianca with as she died, from a wound that was meant for him? No. He'd kill himself first.

Truth, he can do. But Chris doesn't have it in him to pretend. He's done enough for this world - practically created it himself. He's pretty sure it owes him this concession, at least.

Back in Reno, he stakes out the apartment for a couple days before daring to venture back inside. There's no less than six spells covering the building, the sidewalk outside, and the hallway leading up to the door, all of which he nullifies before they trigger. Tracking, detection, mostly. One of them is Paige's signature "who goes there?" crystal spell, which Chris breaks with sharp regret. It's a relief to know for sure she's still alive too, even if he was relatively sure of it before.

Breaking the spells will have the same effect as triggering them, but the delay he has is longer: enough time to get another look around.

The apartment has clearly been picked over, by who knows how many hands: the closet door is open, the coats and boxes inside left in disarray. The clothes in the drawers have been rifled through, and the fishing tackle box with potion ingredients is gone. Most of the spellbooks have been taken, too, and someone has made the bed and piled the dirty clothes from the floor into a hamper in the corner. Chris starts with the desk again, looking for anything to do with the mysterious Miranda - an address, last name, anything.

A box of thank you cards stuffed in the back of one of the drawers finally yields him something: a slim stack of business cards, tucked inside for safekeeping, he supposes - they're all the same, a navy blue and white striped card advertising _Designs by Mimi._ There's an Instagram, a Facebook, and a website: _._

Miranda Schoell. Who probably gave her boyfriend a stack of her cards so he could help promote her...art business? Interior decorating? The website, which Chris looks up from an internet cafe in Houston, doesn't exist anymore, and therefore can't answer any of his questions. The Instagram account on the card has also been deleted - apparently "Designs by Mimi" had not been a winning business venture.

Searching the name is equally unhelpful - all of the results on Facebook lead to locked accounts with no pictures, or indicators of age or location. There's a LinkedIn for a Miranda Schoell who works as an executive in PR for a bank in Greensboro, but considering she looks well into her sixties in her profile picture, Chris is guessing it's not the same person. He hopes.

Getting frustrated, anxious to be done with this problem and get onto his real one, Chris searches "Miranda Halliwell" instead, and gets a hit: a tweet, which leads to a Twitter account named _mimiglamour,_ who has been a Twitter member since 2020, has five hundred and eight followers, and whose profile picture is of a pretty woman in her mid-twenties with purple hair.

Jackpot. Chris scrolls, wincing all the while, reading innocuous comments about movies, books, politics, whatever. She seems smart, witty - maybe a little childish, the way she speaks - types? - about celebrities, but what the hell does Chris know, maybe that's normal. She mentions him - or the other him, he should say - here and there, vague references to "the bf" and the tweet which had led him to the account: a picture of her engagement ring, with a caption full of exclamation marks and emojis. There are comments from other users below it, congratulating her, which Chris skims without reading too closely, too embarrassed and uncomfortable to pay much attention.

She doesn't mention her job, or where she lives. Her most recent tweet is from four months ago, well before Chris' entrance into the weirdest love triangle either world has ever seen - but there's a picture, linked in the sidebar, of a park Chris recognizes from the west side of Oakland, and the caption says, _much better view from my new office window! ofc when your old view was of a dumpster in an alley it's not exactly hard._

Oakland - DeFremery Park, now called the Michelle Obama Memorial Park, is in close vicinity to only a few businesses - a couple restaurants, which Chris takes the chance wouldn't have _offices,_ a bank, an insurance building - only one story though, not high enough for the vantage point in the picture, and a magazine company that Chris doesn't recognize. It's the matter of a few minutes to find Miranda's name on the website for the latter - _Social Media Assistant, Home and Garden._ There's an email, a phone number, and another picture: it's definitely her.

Mimi Schoell, who tweets about home expos and garden furniture for a living. She's got purple hair and a nose ring. If Chris saw her in a bar, he'd avoid eye contact, probably. She looks like an easy mark: big smile, big eyes, cute clothes. Maybe that's unkind of him, but it's still the truth.

He doesn't want to scare her, but there's no good way to break somebody's heart, and he'd rather do it quickly than nicely. So he orbs to her office building, four p.m. on a Friday, and walks right inside.

Chris has two plans - one for if they know who he is, and one for if they don't. It becomes clear almost instantly that it's the latter, when the elderly receptionist gives him the blankest of stares in response to Chris' question.

"Sorry, what?" she says.

"Miranda Schoell," Chris repeats. He smiles, as charmingly as he knows how. "I'm a friend of hers. My phone died, and we were supposed to meet for dinner. I was hoping you could buzz me up."

"Miranda Schoell," the receptionist says, slowly, like Chris has just walked up and asked to see the president. "You want to see...Miranda Schoell."

"That's what I said," Chris says, tensing up a little. There's something weird, in her tone, that he doesn't like.

"You talked to her? Today?" Something's definitely not right. The receptionist looks gobsmacked, and one of her hands is on the phone, like she's about to call security or something. "Is this a prank?"

"No," Chris says slowly, taking a step back. He glances around, but the rest of the lobby looks totally innocuous: an older man waiting for the elevator, a service worker leaning over an open light fixture attached to the wall. A young girl is sitting on a couch behind the reception desk, typing on a smartphone. None of them pay any attention at all to Chris.

"Miranda Schoell hasn't shown up for work in almost a month," the receptionist says, almost angrily. Chris snaps his gaze back to her, his attention spiked by the alarm in her voice. "We reported her missing to the police a week ago. If you've heard from her, then you need to go straight to the police station, right now, and tell them what you know."

Shit. "Maybe I've got the wrong office," Chris says, already angling his body back towards the door. The man by the elevator looks over, probably alarmed by the volume of the receptionist's voice. "Just a mistake, sorry, I - "

"We're very worried about her," the receptionist says, raising to her feet, "what did you say your name was?"

"Never mind," Chris says, and starts walking quickly towards the doors.

"Wait," she calls after him. Out of the corner of his eye, Chris can see her rounding the desk. "Wait, please - she doesn't have any family - if you know something - "

"Sorry," Chris calls over his shoulder, and seeing her quicken her stride, books it. He ducks into the first shadowy corner he sees, outside on the sidewalk, behind a parked SUV, and orbs away immediately.

Well, this complicates things. Chris breaks into Oakland PD that night and manages to find the case file - she's been missing for about the same amount of time that Chris has been here. A detective went to her apartment and found no signs of struggle. Her car was still parked in the lot, there was fresh food in the kitchen. No phone, no computer. No family, other than two cousins on East Coast who hadn't heard from her in years. It's as if she just walked away into thin air. The case is open, but the report is written with the bored air of a cop who's just checking off boxes. People do that more often than anyone thinks - walk away from everything, with no word or sign as to why. And it's not as if she had any strong ties - there's no mention of Chris or the Halliwells at all, in the police report. Apparently, cops don't know how to use Twitter.

It's too much of a coincidence. Chris _really_ should have kept the phone.

* * *

He's managed to make some fledgling contacts in the Underworld - friends of Zazi's, mainly, who have been mildly helpful so far. But none of the people - demons, valkryies, or otherwise - he'd worked with in 2004 are still around, and even if they were, Chris wouldn't risk reaching out. So he's got about as much clue as to where to start as the cops do.

"Obviously someone took her," Zazi says. He's retreated to her cave again, to talk it through out loud: clients really must be few and far between, if she has the time to sit around and chat with Chris like this. He doesn't ask though - it's not polite to bring up business when a dragon invites you in as a friend. "Your father said she was mortal?"

"I don't think they've even met her more than once or twice," Chris says. "So maybe that's just what he told them - he could've been lying. Or _she_ could have been lying to _him._ "

Zazi's munching thoughtfully on the goat carcass Chris has bought her, roasting each segment with her breath before tearing into it. At Chris' shrug, she snorts forcefully enough to roast the entire thing. "Or she's trying to frame you."

It's true that once the cops figure out Chris' involvement, he'll probably be their prime suspect. "Why? She sent me messages that day that I saw, but the last time anyone saw her was the day after that, in the morning. So she had to have disappeared not long after I showed up here - a matter of hours, probably. That's barely enough time for her to find out something happened to me at all, let alone plan some elaborate scheme. And that's only if she _is_ mortal - "

"Maybe she figured out you weren't who you said you were, and wanted vengeance."

Chris thinks dubiously about her purple hair, the emojis, the sad little business cards. "I don't think so. The cops don't even know about me yet. If it were deliberate she would've left something to point them my way somehow."

"Maybe she's just stupid," Zazi offers.

Well, there is that possibility, Chris guesses. "Beelzebub's Razor, Zaz. The simplest answer is always 'demons.' One of the ones that crossed over from my timeline, most likely. I wasn't exactly a popular guy, among Wyatt's crowd."

"Well, she's definitely dead now, if that's the case," Zazi says carelessly. She chomps up the last of the goat, spitting out one bloody hoof towards the darkest corner of the cave. "I haven't heard anything, though. And I certainly haven't Seen anything. You'd think if someone nabbed someone that close to the Halliwells, it'd be all over the rumor mills by now. No demon would be able to resist bragging about that."

"What have you heard about the kids?" Chris asks. He needs to know, but he doesn't want to. Zazi's the only ally he's found so far that remembers him - the _real_ him - so better to ask her than find out in a harder way. "Wyatt's in med school in Seattle, I found that out from the internet. But Leo mentioned a cousin - P.J. - "

"Three girls from the middle sister," Zazi says. "Don't know much, but everyone knows there's three. There's talk of them being the next Charmed Ones, though of course that's silly - nobody in your accursed family needs a destiny to be powerful. They've got enough of it just from their bloodline."

"She really married a Cupid?" Chris shakes his head. Of _course_ she did. "That's gotta result in some...interesting powers."

Zazi gives the dragon equivalent of a shrug: her scales ripple, turning quickly from green to gold and then back again. "They're young. Nobody knows much about them. And of course the Halliwells don't advertise down here."

"Right."

"No other children from the eldest, but the youngest - the half-Whitelighter sister - she's got a son," Zazi says. "I think he's young too; nobody's ever seen him. But he was taken once by a pair of warlocks who were working with some nymph with delusions of grandeur - the Charmed Ones leveled the entire lair. Just obliterated them. People still talk about it."

"I'll bet they did," Chris says wryly.

"Half mortal, that's all anyone knows about that one," Zazi says. "Rumor says he's not as powerful, but of course rumors from demons are hardly reliable. And of course, the eldest son of the eldest sister, the one who wields the Arthur sword. He's had quite a few of his own tangles down here - visible ones. Everyone knows _his_ face."

"So some things still remain constant between worlds then," Chris says, with a bitter chuckle. "Have you heard anything recent? Anything involving me?"

"No." Zazi tilts her head thoughtfully. "No, nobody says much of anything about you, actually. Which I didn't think twice about, now that you mention it. People seem much more preoccupied with Wyatt."

"Story of my life," Chris says with a sigh. Not that it's not useful, but it still stings from time to time. "What about Piper and Leo? Do you know anything, Zaz?"

Zazi sighs, smoke curling sadly around Chris' ankles. "The word is that they're divorced. I don't know anything more intimate than that."

Chris frowns, scratching his chin in thought. He's been trying to grow a beard, an extra safeguard against being recognized - especially now that he's likely to become a fugitive from the mortals soon - and it's been going about as well as it ever does. "Well, I can't say I didn't figure that out when Leo showed up looking not a day over thirty-five."

"Your mother's aged quite well though," Zazi says. "Or so I hear."

"By which you mean some warlock said something disgusting about her, right?"

"It was sort of complimentary, if you could ignore the death threat," Zazi replies. "I'm sorry I can't be of more help, my friend. I haven't Seen anything else since the last time you visited."

"You've helped more than you know, Zaz," Chris says, reaching out rubbing one of her talons affectionately. "There's only so much you can do, considering you're too lazy to leave your cave, now."

Zazi snorts. "I am _comfortable_ here," she says archly, her scales rippling. "Besides, there's a price on the black market for my bones, you know. My actual bones. Can you imagine! Like there's any demon or witch alive that could figure out how to cut through my skin."

Chris chuckles. "I could do it."

"Any demon or witch alive and _willing,_ then," Zazi says. She curls her tail in Chris' direction - affectionately so, being careful not to get too close with the spikes - and tilts her head down, wordlessly asking for another head rub. Chris obliges. "You like me too much to tell my secrets."

"Well, I've only got the one. I've got to hang onto it, otherwise it stops being useful."

"Clever little shit," Zazi says approvingly, blowing blood-scented smoke in his direction. "See? You're doing fine. You'll figure it out."

"Thanks," Chris says, bemused.

"Just don't be surprised if she's dead," Zazi says. "I know you have a type."

Chris winces. "Ouch," he says.

* * *

thank you to everyone who's read and left comments so far! v. v. glad you're enjoying it. I'm updating as I write, keeping myself a few chapters ahead, so I know updates are sporadic, sorry about it. things are flowing well so far, though, so it's looking to be maybe 10 chapters altogether by the time I write my way to the end, depending on how much trouble I end up giving myself. wish me luck!


	5. Chapter 5

Chris has been squatting in the Underworld for the most part, which is handy for the fact that he's untraceable there. Unless the person doing the tracing is _also_ in the Underworld, and not in one of the dead zones, or otherwise imperiled or encaptured. He'd feel better if he could do one of those identity theft spells, that changes everything about you, from the magical signature in your DNA all the way out to the way you look. His Aunt Phoebe had once performed one for Darryl Morris and his family, early on in his original timeline, when things started getting bad - a favor, and a strategic move, to keep a valuable ally safe. But she'd died before she'd had the chance to teach it to Chris, and every attempt he'd made at replicating it had failed. And he and Bianca had tried _a lot._

One of the best sources of information he's found is a bar owned by a demon named Bune, who used to be one of the big names, back in the day when mortals still formed cults and made sacrifices to weird names they found in occult books. Nowadays he tends bar for low-level warlocks. He makes one hell of a martini (no pun intended), and he'll tell you anything you wanna know if you bring him Cool Ranch Doritos (hard to find time to go shopping on the surface - especially when you have blue skin and a forked tail).

"Which son - Wyatt Halliwell?" Bune shakes his head, munching thoughtfully on a Dorito. His office is decked out in blue paint and velvet, and he blends into the background sort of disturbingly. "Nah. The Twice Blessed isn't marrying some _mortal girl_. He's gay, everyone knows that."

Another thing Chris has discovered: half the Underworld here thinks Wyatt is gay. The other half is in love with him, which is...depressingly similar to Chris' original timeline, so he doesn't like to dwell on it. "No. The younger son."

"The little one? The half-Whitelighter's kid?"

" _No,_ " Chris says, trying hard not to show his irritation, "the younger son of Piper Halliwell. Wyatt's," he winces, "little brother."

"Ohh," Bune says, shaking his head. "Nah. Never heard of him."

 _Fucking typical._ "His name is Christopher. He's engaged to a mortal, and she was kidnapped by a demon about five weeks ago." The demon theory is bullshit, of course - Chris still doesn't know what the hell happened to her. But sometimes the trick to getting information out of people is to take a wild guess and wait for someone to correct you. "I need a name, a location. Something."

Bune just shrugs, still munching. "Haven't heard anything about kidnapping," he says, scratching the side of his nose with the end of his barbed tail. "What do you care, anyway?"

The other nice thing about Bune is that he doesn't really give a shit who you are. Chris didn't even bother to come up with a cover. "Never mind. You haven't heard _anything_ about anyone going after the Halliwells? Come on."

Bune shrugs again. "Some shapeshifter's been in here, talking about going after one of the younger ones. But he's an idiot - they're gonna eat his guts for breakfast."

"What's his name?" Even if it's a dead end, it's still something.

"What's it to you?"

"A bit more than a bag of Doritos," Chris says dryly. He pulls his backup out of his jacket pocket - a fetish porn magazine he'd shoplifted from a corner store. Bune's skin flushes neon blue at the sight of it. "Name first."

"Don't have a name," Bune says quickly, his hooves clicking anxiously against the stone floor. "He works for a Phoenix. One of the contractors - a free agent. One of the 'name your price' types."

Chris' mood darkens. That means whoever she is, she takes hits on kids. "And _her_ name?"

"Maxine Shaw. Operates out of Detroit." Bune flicks his tail impatiently. "Satisfied?"

"Not in the slightest," Chris says, tossing the magazine his way. "But you're about to be, I assume. Have at it."

"Come back anytime," Bune says, stuffing it indelicately between the couch cushions. Chris grimaces. He really wishes he won't have to. But he's not liking his luck so far.

* * *

He recognizes the name of course - Max Shaw, also known as Max Benedrine (a stupid nickname, but still _miles_ better than "Bee Sting," which is what Bianca had been going by when he'd met her), a distant cousin of Bianca's, known for her proficiency with poisons. Of course, all Phoenixes are related somehow, but they rarely associate with each other outside of their immediate families, so it's not like she took it all that hard when Chris killed her. (In self-defense, but still - the smallest thing can make or break a relationship, in the early days.)

So if she's one of the ones that's crossed over, she's going to be extremely unhappy to see him - but he can't imagine dealing with a notorious Free Agent assassin with designs on his family will be any easier. Either way, he's not going to get a warm welcome. Not that he's not used to that - he's had three or four run-ins by now, all with demons who had once worked with Wyatt and then ended up here somehow, all of whom had immediately tried to kill him on sight. That last one - one of Wyatt's old lieutenants, a Darklighter with an unusual amount of independence - had gotten in a lucky shot to Chris' shoulder, and he's still pretty sore. Healing yourself is never quite the same as being healed - so he's not at one hundred percent, and going directly into a confrontation is probably a really, really bad idea.

Still - Miranda Schoell, to the best of Chris' knowledge, is an innocent. And barring further information to the contrary, he's got an obligation to save her life should she be in mortal danger due to her connection with his parallel-timeline-self. And it's not like he's having much luck with his other goals, at the moment: the only thing he's figured out about why this is all happening is that nobody else has the faintest idea about what the fuck is going on - Seers, demons, warlocks, soothsayers - none of them have a clue. Even the crossed-over demons he's found - high level operators, who held the trust and confidence of Wyatt himself - seem freaked out by it all. So it's better than spinning his heels down that dead end street, at least.

Her house in Detroit is relatively easy to find; most Phoenixes don't bother with subterfuge or hiding, since that'd get in the way of finding business. They just booby trap the shit out of their homes, and assume that whoever is smart enough to get past it will also be smart enough not to rip them off. And Chris is definitely smart enough.

A two-story suburban nightmare, on the rich side of a bad neighborhood in South Detroit: Chris disables three different crystal traps just in the front yard. There's a stinging curse on the door, and three different alarms on the windows. He also assumes there's some kind of trap for people orbing or shimmering in, so he tries the direct route: he walks up to the door and rings the bell.

He doesn't wait for an answer. "Maxine Shaw!" he calls, peering in through the window. The inside of the house is dark, which doesn't necessarily mean anything. "I have a job for you!"

He waits a few moments, but nothing happens. He's come in disguise, of course, but he's terrible with accents, so if this is the Max he knows, she might have already recognized him. Or she might just be plain old paranoid. He rings the bell again. " _Maxine Shaw!_ he yells, pitching his voice even louder. There are no neighbors out and about, but that doesn't mean they're not listening. "Maxine Shaw, Descendant of Tituba! I have work for you!"

He's about to start really laying in on the bell when the door suddenly unlocks with a loud, clicking sound. Chris peers in through the window again, but the inside is still dark. "Well, what the hell," he mutters to himself, and pushes the door open, making his way cautiously inside.

The foyer is draped in shadow, but there's a light on deeper into the house, which Chris follows for lack of a better idea. He's wearing a protective amulet that should protect him against a Phoenix's power-draining ability, but he's never tested it before, and he can't be sure that it works. He'll just have to be careful.

He's tense and wary enough that he's more than ready for the attack when it comes - an energy ball, hurtling at him from somewhere up high. Chris ducks and rolls, muttering a shield spell that flares into existence when a second ball comes flying at his new position, scatting a wave of blue and white light over his head, temporarily blinding him.

"Shit," he says, concentrating on his shield, pouring more of his magic into it. Another energy ball, this time hitting him slightly on the left, glancing off the corner of the shield and sending a sizzle of heat down his leg.

He's being herded. The next attack is definitely from the left - far off enough that he doesn't turn in time. It scorches the floor right next to him, and Chris stumbles sideways to avoid the heat - towards a closed door, with a light coming streaming through the gap between the wood and floor that definitely hadn't been on before. Chris gets his back against the wall of the hallway and tries to squint through the light of his shield, hoping to make out a figure - but there's nothing. The cavernous foyer is dark enough that the light from the magic is enough to obscure what little he could make out in the first place. Another energy ball hits him head on, as if admonishing him for the attempt.

Well, he walked straight into this, he might as well see it through. Pouring more magic into the shield, he makes a move for the door, rotating it around his body as he moves. There are no more energy balls, though, and he makes it through unscathed - not necessarily a good thing, since this is obviously what his attacker wanted him to do.

But for what purpose? On the other side of the door lies an empty office, illuminated by a single light from a free-standing lamp. Chris pulls the door shut behind him and crouches against the wall, but it immediately swings open again, banging loudly against a bookshelf, oddly placed in the door's path. Chris sends a wave of telekinesis at the empty space, in case his attacker is invisible, but other than a few books flying off the shelves, and the door creaking angrily against the weight of his magic, nothing happens.

He crouches there for almost three full minutes, waiting, but nothing happens. No more energy balls, no attacker appearing out of thin air. "Helllo?" he calls warily, still ready to defend himself, but his voice simply echoes. "Maxine Shaw?"

Still nothing. Chris finally stands up, stumped.

"This is a weird vetting process, even for a Phoenix, you know," he says out loud, but still: nothing happens. No attacks, no Max Shaw. Just Chris, standing in an office, talking to himself. "What the fuck?"

As if a reaction to the vulgarity, something falls abruptly off the desk. Chris whirls around, ready to defend himself again, but still - there's nothing. Even someone under an invisibility spell would show up as a shadow, especially in a dimly-lit room like this.

"Are you a ghost?" Chris asks, cocking his head. Another book falls off the desk, much more forcibly, skidding several feet across the floor. "I'll take that as a no."

He walks over cautiously, still tense, but still - no attack. The desk itself is clearly Max's: a bejeweled athame, the same one she carried in his original world, sits in a glass case on the desktop. Chris rifles through the files a little: they're background checks. An assassin's homework.

Going slowly, warily, Chris looks further through the papers: here, a photograph of the Halliwell Manor, surrounded by a tall wooden fence that wasn't there in 2004. Chris frowns, and finds more underneath it: pictures of himself - eating a burrito while standing at a stoplight, standing next to a bike and talking to a young boy, sitting in a coffee shop, smiling at someone whose back is turned to the camera. He grimaces; he really hopes his other self was at least _aware_ that he was under surveillance, because otherwise this is just embarrassing.

There are other pictures, too - a variety of people Chris doesn't recognize. They're grouped loosely together, but not sorted into files - as if someone had grabbed a bunch at random from a drawer, and spread them out on the desk. Chris glances up at the empty room again, suspicious.

"You're still here, aren't you?" Something - someone - knocks on the wall. "What is that, once for yes, twice for no?" Another knock. "Great. You're not associated with Shaw, are you?" Two knocks. "Are you my enemy?"

Two very loud, very forceful knocks. "Well thanks," Chris says dryly. "I really felt the love from those energy balls."

One of the books that had fallen off the desk before skids back in his direction, hitting the side of his boot. As if someone had kicked it at him. Chris narrows his eyes.

"You can't talk out loud?" Nothing. Chris tilts his head. "Okay. Too vague. You can...but I can't hear you?"

A loud, single knock.

"So you're just invisible." Two knocks. "So you can talk, and you're visible, just...not to me?" One knock. Now they're onto something.

Chris sighs, looking down at himself. His disguise is one that he's used before - a younger kid with blond hair that Bianca used to say made him look like Wyatt. He'd chosen it on purpose, since the Max from his world had seen it once or twice - a litmus test, to gauge her reactions, and her memories. He lets the spell drop now.

"You already knew who I was, didn't you?" Another knock. "Is Shaw here?" Two knocks. "Really?" Two more knocks, a bit louder than before. "Okay, okay. Why did you want me to see this office? I already knew she was a Phoenix." Two firm knocks. "You're kidding me. Of course Maxine Shaw is a Phoenix. You can walk away from the life, but you can't just erase your own bloodline, for fuck's sake." Two more insistent knocks. "Or...she's not Maxine Shaw?" One knock. Chris frowns. "Then why the hell is she pretending to be?"

Another silence, but after a second: a brush of contact against his arm, as if someone has just walked past him. Chris tenses, all the hair on his arms standing up. One of the desk drawers opens.

Chris sits down in the chair, hyper aware of the invisible presence at his side. He can feel their body heat, and he knows if he were to reach out - there'd be someone there, someone he could touch.

Inside the drawer is a set of hanging files, most of which are empty, and Chris holds his breath, feeling his mysterious ally's movement as they reach down and push the folders aside. It's extremely eerie, to be so close to them, to see the effects of their movement, but not be able to see… _them._ Underneath in the bottom of the drawer, is a wig. Chris reaches in, cognizant of his companion's presence, so close to him at the desk, and pulls it out.

It's a high quality blonde one, with streaks of purple, slightly faded at the ends. Chris recognizes it instantly.

"Miranda Schoell," he says definitively. He feels another brush of an invisible arm, as his companion knocks once, firmly on the desktop. "Well fuck me, I _do_ have terrible taste in women," he mutters, then nearly jumps right out of his skin when his companion slaps his arm, almost playfully. "What - "

They're already moving again, however, and Chris tosses the wig back in the drawer, feeling the body heat retreat. The papers on the desk start to move, and he watches as a pen rises into the air, scratching something out on the back of one of the reports.

"The...witness protection spell?" Chris reads out loud, following the words as they form. "Is that - what is that?"

The pen pauses, then scratches something quickly, underlining it twice. The paper is pushed towards him on the desk, and Chris swears his heart stops, right then and there. Just stops beating altogether, for the full second it takes to read the words written in blocky, familiar handwriting.

 _IT'S ME, HOTSHOT._

"Bianca," Chris breathes, reaching out a shaky hand. An arm is pushed into his touch, and he grabs onto it, tracing his way up to a shoulder, a neck, a brush of invisible hair. "How are you - is it really - "

Warm hands touch his face, and Chris shudders, thinking of Zazi's prophecy, words he's forced himself not to dwell on: _You will not find the one you covet until you learn to close your eyes._

He does so then, and pictures her face on the last day he saw her: creased in pain, lips trembling, hair matted with blood. His stomach feels like it's been turned to lead, and he can't really feel his legs. All there is are the hands on his cheeks, gently pushing, nodding his head: _yes, yes._

"By the might of heaven's skies," Chris whispers, "and the grieving raven's cries, I call thee give my heart reply - to rid herself of rival's eye."

He feels a small head hit his chest, invisible shoulders shaking - laughter? Grief? Chris opens his eyes, and finds himself still holding empty air.

"Abracadabra?" he tries. Then yelps, when she pinches his side. "Okay, okay. It was worth a shot. Jesus, honey, is it really you?" He feels down for her shoulders, still feeling extremely surreal, to be touching somebody solid and familiar that he can't see. "She's a shapeshifter, isn't she? What the hell kind of magic is this?"

He feels her pull away, and has to bite back an instinctive, panicked reaction to pull her back - as if he stops touching her, she'll disappear for real. But the pen rises up in the air again, writing another message.

 _SPELL TO PROTECT SOMEONE FROM A STALKER. CAST ON YOU, NOT ME. NEED HALLIWELL B.O.S. COUNTER POTION. MIRANDA = SHAW = ACTUALLY SOMEONE FROM OUR TIMELINE - ONE OF WYATT'S? DON'T KNOW WHO. EVIL!_

She's underlined "evil" three times, as if Chris was having trouble grasping the concept. "My family thinks you're evil?"

 _MAYBE THEY JUST NEED TO GET TO KNOW ME._

Chris laughs, a little incredulously, sinking back down into the desk chair. He reaches out again, and Bianca helpfully moves into his reach, sliding her hand into his grip.

"You tried to convince them, didn't you," he says. "How long have you remembered? No - don't tell me." He squeezes her hand, as she starts to pull away. "I want to hear the whole thing, in your voice. When I can see your face."

He feels her move closer, a press of warm lips to his forehead. He closes his eyes again, thinking about her body - what it looks like, feels like, the familiar angles and dips and scars - and wraps his arms around her waist, leaning his head against the solid plane of her torso. Fingers run through his hair, arms looped around his neck. If he concentrates, he can even smell her - the burnt circuit scent of her magic, the body spray she used to drench herself in, when they couldn't find anywhere that had a shower. Burning sage, peanut butter crackers. Vodka cranberry and cheap laundry detergent.

"Disguised as a mortal," he mumbles, keeping his eyes closed so he can still pretend he can see her. "Seduced me - for what? To get close to my family? And you were trying to help me?"

A gentle, single knock of her knuckles, against the back of his neck.

"But of course I didn't believe you, I didn't know who you were," Chris says, squeezing her tight. Her legs are trembling, a little. "We'll have to go to the Manor. I'll sneak in, get the counter potion, sneak out again. No - no, you're not coming with me." Two knocks, against his neck - less than gentle, this time. " _No,_ Bianca, they'll vanquish you. I didn't tell them what happened when - when you came back. They don't know that you're…"

Pulling away again, the paper makes another appearance: _YOUR FAMILY CAST IT, NOT HER._ The letters are shaky, the pen jittering around, as if her hand is shaking. _NOT LETTING YOU OUT OF SIGHT AGAIN EVER._

"Sweetheart," Chris says helplessly, never wishing for anything so much in his life than to see her face. To look at what this world has made of her. How long has she remembered? How long has she had to watch from afar, aching to help, but unable to act, outmaneuvered by her own reputation? He should have just _told_ them, he thinks in frustration. He should have just fucking told the sisters the truth. The whole truth of Bianca, at the very least.

 _WE GO TOGETHER THIS TIME,_ she's written, the pen falling definitively on the desk, _OR NOT AT ALL. NO MORE SUICIDE MISSIONS._

Chris just laughs again, incredulous, overwhelmed, his heart beating so hard it actually hurts. Only Bianca would walk straight into a situation in which _she_ is the only one in danger because she wants to _protect him._ Only Bianca would call something like that a "suicide mission."

He closes his eyes again and reaches out, feeling his way to her stomach, the spot on her chest where Wyatt stabbed her. He presses his palm against her beating heart and thinks, _thank you. Whoever you are, whatever this is, thank you._

"Okay, we'll fight about it later," he mumbles. She presses back into his arms, hands coming up to circle loosely around his wrists. "Just gimme a minute. Gimme just a minute, honey."

Fingers squeeze his wrists affectionately, and Chris leans his head against an invisible back and for the first time, takes a long, needed breath.


	6. Chapter 6

"This is an incredibly stupid idea," Chris says. Bianca, who's been fisting the back of her jacket in her hand to reassure him that he's still there, thumps him on the shoulder. "Well, I'm just saying. You'd never let me do this, if it were the other way around."

One advantage of your partner being invisible is that you always get the last word. Chris has no doubt that whatever she's saying back to him is just as cutting and righteous, but if he can't hear it, then it totally doesn't count.

They've broken into the neighbor's home, the only house with any kind of view of the Manor. It's being remodeled, and most of the first floor is torn up but the second floor is still intact - lived-in bedrooms, bathrooms with toiletries and makeup still strewn over the counters. It must be a group of roommates who live here now - there's locks on all the doors, no signs of children, multiple bottles of detergent in the laundry room. In 2003 it'd been vacant, and occasionally a realtor would come by showing it to people, but nobody ever bought it to Chris' knowledge. Early into 2004, not too long after Christmas, some kids had broken into it for a party, the cops were called, and it was this whole big drama since they trashed the entire first floor. Piper had gone over to help with the cleanup, which had struck Chris as very strange, but there was some kind of story about an ex of hers who used to live there and Chris very intensely did not want to know about that, so he never asked her about it.

The Halliwells obviously keep tabs on it now, and for good reason - it's an extremely strategic access point to the Manor. There's a dormant crystal cage around the entire property, which Chris had sensed right away. The missing crystal is probably somewhere close to the Manor's garden - easy for someone in the house to access, trapping whoever is inside the neighboring house as easily as moving a stone from one spot to another. It's clever - Paige's idea, Chris would guess. Vulnerable plan, though - all someone would have to do is move one of the other crystals to disrupt the pattern, which was the first thing he and Bianca did - and with several adults living in the house - college students, is Chris' guess, judging by the clothes and the posters on the walls of the bedrooms - the cage probably gets disrupted all the time accidentally. Would take a lot of time and attention to keep checking on it, to make sure the trap is still intact, and to keep the occupants from getting suspicious, which means they _also_ most likely have the house under some kind of surveillance. That's what Chris is really worried about - all his cloaking spells, Bianca's protection wards, the interference spell they'd cast before even going inside - it still wouldn't hold up against the Power of Three. But even if it did - the interference in whatever magic the Halliwells have here would be just as conspicuous either way, even if they can't tell who it is.

Bianca doesn't seem to care. They've been using paper and pen to communicate, and the floor of the north-facing bedroom is already littered with the discarded scraps of their argument.

"Tell me why you're so reckless," Chris finally demands. It's getting close to dawn, the sun peeking up over the horizon. The Halliwells will be waking up soon, leaving for work, school - whatever. If one of them is going to try and go in, they still have to wait a few more hours, until the house is as close to empty as it ever seems to get. "You and I both know that it needs to be me. For one - they're not going to _kill me._ They won't even try to hurt me - they've been _wanting_ me to show up. You, on the other hand, they won't hesitate to vanquish - it's a choice between no risk at all, and extreme, life-threatening risk. So what the fuck? Tell me the real reason."

The only thing he has to look at is the notebook and pen, floating in mid-air. He can close his eyes and picture her, sitting there across from him writing, but he still has no idea what she even looks like in this world. Is her hair the same color? Does she have different scars, new ones? Does she cover her Phoenix mark or leave it bare? Does she wear makeup, nice clothes? Or just jeans and tank tops, like she'd wear at the base, when they didn't have to go anywhere? Nothing on her face, her hair pulled back, long sweaters that Chris used to slide his arms beneath so he could touch her bare waist. He's dreamed so many times about those sweaters.

 _P.J. CAST THIS ON YOU. THINKS I'M EVIL, THAT I WAS POISONING YOUR MIND AGAINST MIMI._

"Right, I know that," Chris says impatiently. "You told me that already."

 _WHEN SHE FINDS OUT WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU SHE'LL BLAME ME._

"So far you're just arguing my case, not yours."

The only point where they're in physical contact now are their ankles, which are pressed together below their chairs. The notebook seems to sag, as if she's loosened her grip on it, or moved her hands somehow, and she doesn't write anything for a few, very long moments. Chris waits, wishing desperately he could see her face, see how upset she is. She'd never just tell him, if he asked - he always had to judge her mood by her body language, her expressions. It's agonizing, not being able to do that now.

Finally, the notebook moves back up to his former position, and the pen starts to write. Chris doesn't look at it until she's finished - it takes several minutes, and several pages.

 _I GOT MY MEMORIES WHEN I WAS ELEVEN. MY MOTHER WAS DEAD - LIVED WITH BEATRIX AND HELENA IN MASS. THEY THOUGHT I WAS INSANE/COMPROMISED WHENEVER I SAID ANYTHING, SO I STOPPED MENTIONING IT, I THOUGHT FOREVER THAT IT WAS JUST A DREAM. SOMETIMES I THOUGHT I WAS CRAZY._

Chris winces and reaches out for her hand. He feels her give it to him, squeezing his fingers.

 _OF COURSE I KNEW THE HALLIWELLS WERE REAL, EVERYONE KNOWS YOUR FAM. BUT I THOUGHT IT WAS JUST A WEIRD FANTASY I CAME UP WITH WHEN I WAS A KID - GRIEF ABOUT MY MOM? - UNTIL I MET THE OTHER YOU AT A BAR IN THE UNDERWORLD. HE WAS THERE WITH ANOTHER WHITELIGHTER, THEY WERE LOOKING FOR SOME DEMON AFTER THE B.O.S. HE RECOGNIZED ME RIGHT AWAY EVEN THO I DIDN'T TRY TO TALK TO HIM OR INTERFERE. HE CHASED ME, WANTED TO TALK. HE KNEW EXACTLY WHO I WAS. HE WANTED TO KNOW THE TRUTH._

Chris sucks in a surprised breath.

 _WE TALKED MOSTLY ON PHONE. ONLY IN PERSON ONE MORE TIME AFTER THAT AND IT WAS V. SHORT, FEW MINUTES TOPS. HE KNEW A LOT OF DETAILS ALREADY FROM TALKING TO BILLIE. HE WAS WORRIED ABOUT WYATT MAINLY, WANTED TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO KEEP HIM SAFE, KEEP OURWYATT AWAY. I DIDN'T SLEEP WITH HIM. WASN'T LIKE THAT._

"I didn't think it was like that," Chris says out loud. "Even if it was, I wouldn't care, you know that."

Bianca just taps his arm, silently telling him to keep reading.

 _WE WERE FRIENDS I GUESS. HE WAS NAIVE BUT VERY KIND, LOVED WYATT V MUCH. WHEN HE MET MIMI THINGS CHANGED - MOVED TO RENO, WITHDREW FROM HIS FAM. STARTED DEMON HUNTING A LOT MORE. HE GOT MUCH HARSHER WITH ME - HIT ON ME CONSTANTLY, NOT IN A NICE WAY. I TRIED TO HELP, BUT HE DIDN'T LISTEN. MIMI SEEMED LIKE A NORMAL NICE GIRL - YOUR FAM. THOUGHT IT WAS HIM, THAT HE WAS TAKING ADVANTAGE OF HER. HE'D TREAT HER BADLY IN FRONT OF OTHERS. BUT I DID A TRUTH REVEAL SPELL AND FOUND OUT SHE WASN'T HUMAN, AND WHEN I CONFRONTED HER SHE ATTACKED ME._

"They thought it was you?" Chris asks. Bianca taps his wrist once. "Of course they did. She was just an innocent mortal, a nice quirky girl he was dating. They probably found out he was talking to you and suddenly you're the hot demon who's seducing him into bad behavior, right?"

Bianca taps again, wrapping her leg more tightly around Chris'. The notebook slips out of his hands and back over to her, and the page flips to a fresh side. Chris rubs her calf with his foot while she writes, trying not to think too hard about what exactly she means by "hit on me, not in a nice way."

 _SO I WENT TO P.J. I COULDN'T HANDLE GOING TO WYATT, COULDN'T EVEN SEE HIS FACE WITHOUT PANIC ATTACK. AND I WAS TERRIFIED OF YOUR MOM/AUNTS. P.J. IS PHOEBE'S OLDEST GIRL, SHE AND CHRIS WERE V. CLOSE. SHE WAS V. WORRIED ABOUT HIM, I COULD TELL, SO I THOUGHT SHE MIGHT BELIEVE ME._

"But she didn't," Chris says sadly. Bianca taps his wrist twice.

 _MIMI GOT TO HER FIRST. TOLD HER I'D ATTACKED HER, LONG SOB STORY, ETC. I'D ARRANGED A MEETING W/ P.J. IN PUBLIC BUT IT WAS A TRAP. THEY HAD ME IN A CRYSTAL CAGE FOR A FEW HOURS, INTERROGATING. I'M FINE. BUT I COULDN'T CONVINCE THEM. WYATT WAS THERE._

"Oh, sweetheart," Chris murmurs, squeezing her hand. Bianca squeezes back, as a reassurance - or maybe she just wants to, it's hard to tell.

 _DIDN'T HAVE THE STONES TO KILL ME, SO THEY FINALLY LET ME GO. I TRIED RIGHT AWAY TO TALK TO CHRIS, BUT THEY MUST HAVE CAST THIS ON HIM RIGHT AFTER. THIS WAS TWO DAYS BEFORE HE DISAPPEARED. I WENT AFTER MIMI BUT SHE WAS ALREADY UNDERGROUND, GAVE UP HER HUMAN ID SAME TIME. FIGURED OUT WHAT HAPPENED WHEN YOU MADE CONTACT WITH BUNE - HAVE FRIEND AT THE BAR THERE. KNEW RIGHT AWAY IT WAS YOU._

"I think she did kill him, Bianca," Chris says gravely. He reaches out and feels for her knee, squeezes it tightly. "Leo told me that Billie appeared when her other self had a stroke - brain death. Wyatt's men who have appeared - the ones I've tracked down have all shown up during a fight of some kind - an attempt on their life. I think that's the way this happens - when you die here, your other self steps in. I just don't know _why._ "

The pen wobbles in the air for a second before she replies. _AND I COULD'VE STOPPED IT._

"You tried," Chris says, wishing again, more than anything, to see her face. "You did _everything you could._ "

She doesn't write anything for a long time. Chris just holds onto her knee, watching the sun rise through the window. Trying not to think too hard about the details.

 _MIND ALTERING SPELL,_ Bianca finally writes, the pen jittering nervously across the page. The handwriting is shakier, too. _DOESN'T AFFECT JUDGMENT, BUT IT'S ONE STEP DOWN FROM THAT. IT'S SOMETHING YOU CAST ON THE STALKER, SO THEY CAN'T SEE THEIR VICTIM. IF SHE'S WILLING TO CROSS THIS LINE TO KEEP YOU AWAY FROM ME, THE OTHERS DON'T MEAN ANYTHING TO HER EITHER._

"How do you know it's P.J.?" Chris asks. "You said you weren't there when they cast the spell."

She crosses out several replies before she finally makes it to a full sentence: _JUST TRUST ME._

"Okay." He looks out the window, at the second story of the Manor, now clearly visible in the early morning light. Inside is his family: the people he gave up everything to save. This is the world he and Bianca wanted, that they fought so hard to create. And here they are: hiding from it. Is he even glad that they're alive? If his mother walked in this room right now, he'd throw one of the smoke bombs he'd made and orb them both out. And if it was _Wyatt_...Chris isn't honestly sure what the hell he'd do.

He never expected to see it, and that's the difference. Neither of them expected to be alive, to even exist, to see this future. It was easier that way. But of course - it's never easy. It can never, ever just be _easy._

"You're going to have to trust me too," Chris finally says, reaching out and feeling for her other hand, using the notebook to figure out where it is. "I don't know these people. I don't know where their lines are, but from what you've told me, I know you're in danger. There is no way on heaven or earth that I'm going to let you in that house after you've just told me they tortured you. And don't bullshit me - I know they did. 'Fine' my ass - this is my family you're talking about, and they think you're _evil._ "

He feels her bend down, the tips of her invisible hair brushing his knees. Something leans against his hands - her forehead, he realizes. She's leaning down to press her forehead against his hands.

He could kill the cousin that did this to them, in that moment. The Wyatt he knew was evil, certainly, but even he wouldn't have come up with something as inventively cruel as this spell.

"I'm sorry about the other Chris," he says softly. "I know you'll never admit it, and you don't have to. But I'm so sorry."

She doesn't move, but he can feel her shaking a little. He doesn't dare to move, either.

* * *

The plan is begrudgingly set: they'll wait until the house is empty, or mostly empty, and Chris will go in alone. Get the counterpotion, leave. In and out. If he's not back in thirty minutes, she goes to Zazi. No exceptions, no variations.

(She is definitely going to vary it, if the worst happens. He's already a little preemptively pissed off about it.)

They watch from the window as the cars leave the driveway, one by one. A beat up Honda, then a small sedan, a make he doesn't recognize, and then - an a sharp ache slices through Chris' chest when he recognizes it - Piper's SUV, which had been brand new, straight from the dealership, in April of 2004. It's a lot older now, with visible wear and tear, but it's clearly still running. That was one of the first things he'd learned about her, back then - she was using her grandmother's pots and pans, wearing Prue's clothes. She takes care of things, and makes them last. Of course she still has the same car.

"Any of the cars on the street belong to them?" he asks. Bianca taps his hand twice. "Right. Doesn't mean the house is empty."

 _PAIGE'S FAMILY LIVES IN OAKLAND. PHOEBE AND HUSBAND LIVE DOWNTOWN, P.J. AND WYATT ARE IN COLLEGE. PHOEBE'S YOUNGEST TWO ARE STILL LITTLE, IN GRADE SCHOOL. THEY DROP BY A LOT BUT ON A TUES. MORNING LIKELY THEY'D ALL BE IN CLASS,_ Bianca writes.

"What about Leo?" Chris asks.

 _NO REASON TO BE THERE WHEN PIPER'S GONE. THEY'RE ON BAD TERMS ANYWAY._

"When aren't they?" Chris says dryly, and doesn't wait for an answer. She wouldn't try to reassure him, at any rate.

He scries for people, and gets nothing, which doesn't necessarily mean it's true, but it's the best they can do. He's got an invisibility spell ready - not as good as a potion, but he wants to be able to break it if he has to, but he's reluctant to leave Bianca, worried that she'll follow him. She could shimmer in right behind him and he'd have no idea - he can't even hear the noise she makes, her footsteps on the wooden floors. Whatever the hell kind of spell this is - it's thorough.

He pulls her into a hug, closing his eyes against the now-familiar eeriness, and does the only thing he can: asks her. "Please promise you'll stay away. Please don't make me lose you again."

She hugs him back, her strong arms crossed tightly across his ribs. A press of lips against the side of his neck, and a single tap of her fingers, against the back of his shoulder: the best he's gonna get.

It's likely that they have the Manor alarmed, but he doesn't sense anything when he orbs into the entryway - the only point in the house he can think of where nobody is likely to be lounging. He waits quietly, tensely, against the front door for a long minute, reaching out with both his magical senses and his regular ones - but there's no sound, no footsteps, no electric brush of spellwork. Maybe he really is alone.

The attic is his goal; there's no way the sisters would move the Book. When a Book of Shadows is kept in one place for long enough, it starts to become attached - and one as powerful as the Halliwells' would definitely get attached, so he's relatively sure that's where it is. The rest of the house, though, is distractedly different - the furniture is all unrecognizable, the art on the walls is totally different. Chris makes his way cautiously through the foyer, and up the first flight of stairs - even the paint on the walls is a different color. The antique style of furniture that Piper and Phoebe had favored in 2003 is all gone, replaced by more modern chairs and tables - like something you'd see in a home magazine. The family pictures on the wall are gone too, replaced by framed children's drawings - Chris pauses at one, seeing his own childish handwriting in a corner. It's a crayon rendering of some kind of horse, or maybe a dog - with a great house in the background. Chris shudders, and keeps moving.

If anyone is in the house, they're on the second floor, most likely - in one of the bedrooms, or in the attic. Chris murmurs the invisibility enchantment, to be safe, and watches his own hands disappear - _we're really a matching pair now, honey,_ he thinks dryly. He moves cautiously, avoiding the floorboards he knows to creak. He couldn't have done this, if he hadn't sneaked through this house so many times in 2003, trying to circumvent the sisters, get around Leo's heavy-handed morality. It was always easy, maybe, because he's never truly _lived_ here, never thought of it as his home. He lived with Phoebe and Billie after his mother died, in his original time. By the time Wyatt turned it into a museum and opened it up to his _adoring public,_ nobody had lived beneath its ancient roof for almost fifteen years.

He stops at the foot of the attic stairs; the door to the third floor is open, and there's music playing softly from within. Chris holds his breath and listens: there, faintly, are the sounds of an old floor, creaking beneath someone's weight. He curses silently: there's someone up there.

He moves cautiously, aware that he has little chance of evading detection from a true Halliwell. Inside, sitting cross legged on a large, circular rug, is a girl who looks to be in her late teens or early twenties, with long, light brown hair. She's got the Book of Shadows open on her lap, and she looks so much like Phoebe that it takes Chris' breath away. This has to be P.J.

He can see her tense, as he moves fully into the doorway. Her head snaps up, eyes narrowing. She can't see him, but she can sense him - and Chris sighs, and does something truly stupid - the thing Bianca was probably worried that he would do: he drops the spell.

P.J. drops the Book almost instantly in response. "Chris!" she exclaims, loud enough to rattle the walls. She scrambles to her feet awkwardly, all legs and elbows, and Chris tenses, taking a step back. Noticing this, she stops short a few feet away, her face set in an intent frown. "Chris - you're, you're here, you're okay - what happened, where have you been? Where's Mimi? Do you know what's been happening? I've been calling and calling, and - you broke your phone, why didn't you call, why didn't you come back with Uncle Leo? Are you alright, did something - "

"Whoa," Chris says, holding up one hand. P.J. immediately falls silent, obediently, which is the thing that finally sinks it in, turns the situation real. This is his cousin. The other Chris has definitely done that before, stopped her rambling like that, because they're family, they grew up together, this is _Phoebe's daughter._ He'd bet anything her real name is Prudence. He'd bet his life on it. "Whoa. Okay. Let's - let's slow down."

"Where have you been?" she demands, crossing her arms. Her eyes narrow again. "What the hell happened? We've all been worried _sick._ "

"It's...complicated," Chris says. He takes a few steps into the main part of the attic, his eyes going automatically to the spot by the window where Bianca had died - the first place he looks, every single time he's here. His chest feels tight. "I don't have time to tell you the whole story right now, P.J. I just came by to look at the Book."

"Are you in trouble?" P.J. says. She sets her mouth into a stubborn frown again. "You know Mimi is missing too, right? Wyatt and I have been scrying for _weeks_ but we can't find her, something must've happened to her - "

"It's complicated," Chris interrupts again, at a loss for how to salvage the situation without proof. Anything he says to contradict what she thinks is just going to be evidence that Bianca is influencing him in some way, and then she really won't let him have access to the Book. "Mimi is...I know where she is. And I have a way of finding her, but I need the Book."

"For what? Where is she?" P.J. continues. She's like a miniaturized motor, all buoyant energy and wide eyes. She takes another step in his direction, which Chris mitigates by moving sideways - subtly, he hopes - in the direction of the Book, keeping as much space between them as possible. "What _happened?_ Uncle Leo said that you were upset and you just needed some time to yourself - but Wyatt and me, we found…" she bites her lip. "Chris, you need to tell me what's going on."

They didn't tell the rest of the family, Chris realizes. They went after Bianca on their own - they didn't tell the sisters. He almost wants to laugh - he would've done the exact same thing.

"Mimi and I...broke off the engagement," Chris settles on. He watches her face carefully, for signs of suspicion, but all she does is widen her eyes even more, her mouth dropping open in surprise. "We had a fight, and...it's a long story. I needed some time to myself, and I didn't know she'd gone missing until a few days ago. But there's a spell in the Book I need that I can use to track her down."

"Why didn't you just come home?" P.J. demands. "We would've helped you. Especially if something happened to Mimi - but we all thought you were _missing_ , Chris! You couldn't even send us a frickin' note?!"

"I was upset," Chris says helplessly, hearing how stupid it sounds even as he says it. It's all he's got, though. "Look, we can talk about this later, okay? But now, I need to find Mimi, and I don't need anyone else's help - I have a pretty good idea where she is."

"Well, so do I." P.J. sticks her chin out stubbornly, and Chris winces, knowing exactly what's coming. "I know about Bianca, Chris."

He sighs irritably. "Do you."

"Yeah. I know you've been cheating on Mimi, and I know _what_ she is," P.J. says defiantly. "'Broke off the engagement' my ass - she found out you were running around on her, didn't she? And now your little demonic _side piece_ has done something to her. We'll leave off the lecture about what an incredibly stupid moron you are until later, but for now - Chris, I can _help._ Look - I've already done all this research on the Phoenixes, and Wyatt and I even captured her once, before any of this happened! We can do it again! I have the spell I used to trap her right here - "

She moves to a small desk, rifling through a large notebook, stuffed full with loose papers and tabs, loose Post-It notes that flutter to the floor in her urgency. Chris pinches the bridge of his nose, feeling a migraine slowly approaching.

"If she has Mimi, then the only way to find her is to find Bianca," P.J. says, turning around. "You can scry for a Phoenix, but it just leads to you _any_ of them, because their magic is all so similar. So to find a specific one, the easiest way is to pretend to be, like, a customer, and contract their services - that's what Wyatt's been doing! He's in the Underworld right now, trying to find somebody that will get him in touch with Bianca's clan - it's much, much faster than scrying for like, every Phoenix in North America, and then mapping them all out until you find the right one - "

"Jesus Christ," Chris mutters, shaking his head. P.J. stops mid-sentence, her chin lifting again in offense. "Jesus motherfucking Christ. Your parents don't know about this? And _I'm_ the stupid moron?"

"Well they weren't doing anything!" P.J. cries, two spots of red high on her cheeks. "They - you were just - just _gone,_ and Mimi was in _trouble,_ and we knew exactly who it was and they wouldn't listen to us! They just kept saying some bullcrap about how you needed space and time and once you _came to terms_ \- whatever the hell that means! - you'd get in touch again - _they wouldn't listen!_ "

"Did it ever occur to you that maybe they knew a little bit more about this situation?" Chris snaps. There's something - something hot and angry, in the air between them - it's just that she looks so much like Phoebe. The one he'd known in '03, that is: the witty, self-righteous lookalike of the closest person he had to a real parent - just a younger, stupider version who dismissed everything he said with a condescending smirk and a roll of her eyes. "You don't know what the hell you're doing. Stumbling around, chasing the wrong people - how old are you, even? Eighteen, nineteen? What the hell do you know about any of this?"

P.J.'s eyes go narrow again, her arms crossing. "Who are you?" she spits. "You're not my cousin. Who the hell are you?"

"I am," he says tiredly, moving straight to the Book. P.J. tenses, raising one of her hands, but Chris throws up a shield with a toss of his hand, holding her back with telekinesis. It won't last for long, but long enough to flip the pages, find the page he needs - and, there. He rips it out and stuffs it in his pocket, ignoring the girl's sounds of outrage. "Stop. Just shut up for a second." He drops the shield, but keeps his hands up, pushing lightly on her shoulders with his telekinesis, as a warning. "Listen to me, P.J. You need to go to your mother right now and tell her everything that's been going on. Where Wyatt is, what you guys did to Bianca. Everything."

"Like _hell_ I will - " P.J.'s face is flushed with anger, and her eyes go wide again when her voice stops working mid-sentence, her hands flying to her throat.

"It's not permanent," Chris tells her calmly. "The spell needs concentration, so it'll end when I leave. But I need you to listen to me." He takes a step forward, feeling a guilty rush in his gut when she goes rigid, visible fear on her face. It feels good, to make her feel fear. Which probably says something very terrible about who he is as a person. "Bianca is not my enemy. She's not yours, either. She was trying to help Chris." He looks her straight in the eye. "Do you understand me? She was _trying to save him_."

P.J.'s expression doesn't waver, and he knows she doesn't believe him yet. She will eventually, probably, and then she'll carry it for the rest of her life - especially when they all figure out what happened. He is not capable of feeling bad about that, though he does feel guilty for his lack of empathy, in that sense. He needs to get out of here before he says something he really will regret.

He sighs, and releases the magic on her. She slumps a little against the desk, breathing hard, and Chris feels like a piece of shit.

"Tell them I'm safe," he says. "Tell them I'm going after Mimi, and that I'm with my partner. Tell them…" he rubs his beard, his chest hollowed out and empty. Something nice, he should say. He should come up with something...heartfelt. "Tell them I'm going to keep her from doing this to anyone else, and that I'm going to bring her to justice, for what she did to Chris."

"Chris?" P.J. says, in a small voice. She still looks very, very scared.

"You really do look just like your mom," he says. He smiles, looking at her outfit - something Phoebe would've worn - it's nice, put together, coordinated. She was always dressed up in a full ensemble, even if all she was doing was lounging around the house. All the sisters were like that - they never took a day off, never let anything slide. "Don't take it too hard, kiddo. Just be better next time. Remember that - guilt is just dressed up self-indulgence. Don't give into it."

"Wait - " He orbs out before she finishes her sentence. Best to make it clean - he's already done enough damage.


	7. Chapter 7

Bianca has an apartment in Honolulu - of all places - which is where they go to brew. She'd explained, through notes which have gotten shorter and shorter as they get closer to getting rid of the spell (he doesn't exactly blame her, he's getting pretty sick of this shit too) that Hawaii is, apparently, a safe haven for Phoenixes here. Neutral ground, as they say.

"A weird place to be neutral. I would've thought it'd be somewhere in the Underworld," Chris comments, stirring the potion carefully. It's one of the tricky ones, where you have stir this many times, then say the same spell backwards while stirring the other way, hop one one foot while patting your head, so on and so forth. If they fuck it up it wouldn't be impossible to try again, but it would be expensive, so he's trying to be cautious.

 _SHITTY WIFI DOWN THERE,_ Bianca replies, using the margins of a magazine to speak to him. _BEAUTIFUL UP HERE._

"Yeah, it is." Her place is nothing special - just a tiny one-bedroom in a big complex, no ocean view or beach access or anything like that - she doesn't like to flaunt her money, which is understandable considering how she earns it. But there's something very profound about being so close to the ocean, especially for magic users. It's no coincidence that most of the old families wound up settling on the coasts - Massachusetts, Connecticut, California, Oregon. Hawaii is small enough that the territory is probably precious, so only a group as ruthless as the Phoenixes could manage to keep it guarded. "I'm surprised the island is livable, with all this climate stuff you told me about."

 _ALMOST NO MORTALS LEFT,_ Bianca scrawls. She's drinking wine, which is almost sort of funny - watching the glass tip up and the liquid disappear into thin air. _HURRICANES ARE SO BAD YOU NEED MAGIC TO SURVIVE. LAND WON'T EVEN EXIST IN ANOTHER DECADE._

A place where you could use magic openly, stranded in the middle of the ocean, doomed to disappear and thus erase all evidence left behind of their presence: yeah, Chris is positive that the Phoenixes did whatever they had to do to hold onto it.

"I know you like storms," Chris says fondly, carefully withdrawing the spoon, turning off the heat. "Remember that typhoon we saw in Japan?"

He feels her hand slide up his shoulder, fingers sliding through his hair. He shudders. He hasn't been touched this much by anyone in years. He feels drunk, without having had even a drop of wine.

"I sent my father to Valhalla," Chris says idly, carefully sliding the lid onto the cauldron. As Bianca has tired of writing as much, he's found himself talking more than he usually would, just to fill the silence. "After the Elders were killed, I needed him out of the way, and I had a friend there. Have you ever been there?"

Bianca's wine glass taps twice, gently, against the countertop.

"Not too different from here, I would imagine. Heavy, wet forests surrounded by beach. It storms all the time." Chris shakes his head. "Leo hated it. Hated me for sending him there, too, for a long, long time. Didn't really get over it until he found out who I was, but it was pretty obvious at that point that none of them really liked me. The obligation they felt to love me made it worse."

The pen spins around a few times - twirling in her invisible fingers - before it answers: _YOU DIDN'T WANT THEM TO LIKE YOU._

"No, you're right," Chris agrees. "It was easier that way. And it was easier to dislike them, too. To focus on the shit that annoyed me." He laughs, dryly. "Do you remember when you asked me if I still loved Wyatt? One of the first nights we met. You hadn't even joined the Resistance yet."

The wine glass taps once, gently, the liquid sloshing dangerously close to the rim.

"I should've told you the truth, but I said yes because I wanted you to think I was vulnerable," Chris confesses. "I wanted you to feel...protective of me. I thought it would give you purpose, a motivation to join us, to have someone to take care of, and I knew you were attracted to me." He smiles wryly. "Is that sexist? Probably. It worked, though. Didn't it?"

The glass taps once more, then the pen: _FIGURED U OUT P. QUICK. BUT I LIKED IT, SO KEPT PRETENDING._

"Yeah, me too." Chris laughs, watching the steam rise from the vent in the cauldron's cover. Back in those days, it was easy to play the game, following her around, asking stupid questions just so she could have the satisfaction of always having an answer. It was weirdly reassuring for both of them. "It worked on the sisters, too."

 _DID YOU LOVE THE LITTLE ONE?_

Chris stares at the words for a long, long time, before he can bear to answer. "I think so." He clears his throat nervously, feeling strangely hesitant, almost embarrassed. "He was a baby. I mean - just a baby, that's it. A normal baby with blonde hair who liked trains and stuffed animals. And he was my blood." Chris thinks about that for a second, thinking about P.J. for what must be the thousandth time that night - her scared little face, wide brown eyes. Her clear, desperate worry for Mimi's safety. "I never saw our Wyatt like that. You know? He was already long gone by the time I was old enough to remember."

Bianca doesn't say anything else, and she doesn't touch him again, which he's grateful for. She just drinks the rest of her wine - the thin pool of red trickling out into nothing. A dinner date with a ghost.

"It's ready," Chris says quietly. "Just needs to cool down enough to drink."

The glass floats back down, tapping once as she sets it back on the counter.

"You don't have any weird tattoos you haven't told me about, do you?" Chris asks. He feels her swat his shoulder. "I do. Did I mention that? There's a triquetra on the back of my right shoulder. I nearly pissed myself when I finally got a good look at it."

 _HE LOST A BET WITH WYATT,_ Bianca writes.

"Of course he did," Chris says with a sigh.

 _THERE ARE WORSE THINGS HE COULD'VE PICKED._

"Also true," Chris says, testing the side of the pot with one hand. "Fuck it," he mutters, and grabs the vial she has ready and waiting. "Last chance, sweetheart. If you tell me about the face piercing now, I won't be as mad."

She just hits him again, harder this time. The papers on the counter ruffle, like they're being shuffled around by movement of some kind. Her elbow, or an arm, maybe. Chris is so fucking tired of guessing.

"Here goes nothing then," he says, and knocks back the still-steaming vial of potion. It scalds his tongue, which is probably a good thing since it tastes like burnt rubber, and Chris has to fight to swallow it. He coughs a little, groping for the counter's edge, feeling it scorch its way down his chest and leaving a trail of sulfur behind it.

"Here, drink some water," he hears, and a cup is pressed into his hand. He takes it without much thought, recognizing the voice on a split second delay. There's a hand on his arm. An arm, attached to that hand. A voice he's heard in his nightmares, every night since the last time he'd heard it.

"Bianca," he says hoarsely, and sets the water glass down before he drops it. There she is. Right there, as real as the ground beneath his feet: Bianca.

"Hey, hotshot," she says, a little wobbly. Her eyes are smeared with the remnants of half-rubbed off makeup, and her hair is long - _very_ long, longer than he's ever seen it. Chris reaches out with both hands and he has to stop himself from just _grabbing_ her - gently, carefully, he reminds himself, touching her cheeks, her chin. Her shoulders, bare and angular, her collarbone that juts out beneath her tank top. There's a band-aid on her wrist, she's wearing rings on both her thumbs. Her hair is half braided, reaching all the way down to her waist - her feet, in heels - actual high heels! - which makes her tall enough that she doesn't have to look up to meet his eyes. She looks the same, exactly the same. So similar, and yet - also not. Not different, but - new.

"Bianca," he says again, feeling his face crumple. She makes a pained noise, like she's just been punched, and reaches out and up, fisting her hands in his shirt, and Chris just sort of - wilts, sagging with sudden exhaustion against the counter, letting her support most of his weight. He tips forward, like he's fainting, and finds himself caught in the curtain of her smoky hair - her earring, dangling limply against his cheek. She never used to wear earrings before, either. Did she dress up tonight? Chris wants to laugh at the thought.

"Oh my God," she's murmuring, over and over. She's got his collar bunched in her fists, and if he weren't already embracing her he'd be pinned against her anyway, held tightly by the strength of her grip. "Oh God, you can see me, Chris, oh my God _Chris_ \- "

"I see you," Chris says. He touches her waist, sliding his hand beneath her top to feel her skin - that familiar curve - here it is, unchanged. How something so small as the dip in Bianca's waist could remain the same, through years and years of reality shifts and regime changes and the round and round of life and death and time: still, here she is. Still, the same shape, the same warmth. Still, Bianca.

"Oh God," Bianca says, jerking suddenly in his hold, "did we leave the stove on?"

Chris laughs out loud. "No, you fucking buzzkill. Shut up."

" _You_ shut up."

"No," Chris says, pushing her back against the counter, kissing her mouth shut before she can answer. Time for a goddamn conversation break, he thinks.

* * *

Chris used to have this dream - fantasy, more like, which sometimes turned into a nightmare, on really bad nights when he'd been drinking or not sleeping much or whatever. It was him and Bianca on this great big bed, like one of those California Kings that take up half a room, piled high with pillows and blankets. She'd be reading, or studying or something, wearing glasses for some reason - she always had glasses on in his fantasies about the future, because maybe on some level he thought that normal people wear glasses? Or maybe he just thought she'd look hot in them. Whatever.

And there'd be a tray on some corner, full of food, and on another pillow would be a speaker playing music, and no matter what they wanted to do, or how much they sprawled out and rolled around, they still had plenty of room. The food would never spill, none of the pillows ever fell off the edge. All the blankets were clean and fresh and warm, the coffee was always hot and perfectly sweetened.

There was never anything else in the dream but the bed, nothing ever happened but that. Just him and Bianca, on a great bed. Doing nothing. Reading, talking, making love. Throwing their clothes at each other. There was always sunlight coming from somewhere, they were never too cold or too warm. That was the dream: just a simple one. Waking up safe, and loved, and _feeling_ it, feeling every second of it, with a whole, intact heart.

On bad nights, he'd get through most of this dream before something would jar, a record would scratch, and suddenly Bianca would be dead, sprawled out in the blankets with a wooden stake impaling her, pinning her to the mattress like a butterfly on a pin. Or - even worse were the ones where he'd get distracted for a second and then he'd look back to get her attention and she'd be pinned beneath Wyatt, on the same bed, her wrists bound by magic null cuffs, crying out with no voice. And no matter how hard Chris tried, he could never reach her. The bed would go on for miles in those nightmares, and he'd scramble and crawl and scream himself hoarse, and Wyatt would just keep raping her, torturing her, killing her over and over and over, grinning that terrible fucking grin. _You crying, little brother? I know you liked her. That's my bad. I'll buy you a new one, I promise._

Chris doesn't like to dwell on things. He likes action - constructive action. The only sister who ever asked him for details was Paige, and Chris wasn't stupid enough to indulge her. What could he say? How could he possibly say it? Stand there in Piper's homey, beige kitchen and describe the public executions, the mass arrests? The drones, the enforced famine, the rationing - mortals hunted in the streets, human children thrown to the mercy of the Underworld, and that's if they were _lucky_ \- what would Paige, rational, dry to the end, skeptical of everything Paige have thought of the Sacred Twenty-Four, a coven of white witches who committed mass suicide in an attempt to bind her nephew's powers? _Kind of overkill, don't you think? Unfortunate pun not intended._ Chris couldn't bear the chance that he might hear something like that.

This is what they always struggled to understand: it wasn't just about the Halliwells. It _was,_ in the sense that they were, as usual, the reason everything got so fucked up. But it was because it was their fault that it also _couldn't_ be about them: it had to be more. Chris would not have done what he did, risked what he risked, if it were just his family's tragedy. It was always much bigger than that. It was an entire world: millions of people's safety and health. They never really got it. And how could they? You can't fathom the size of something that big. Nobody's really equipped for it.

Chris used to watch them sometimes and think, incredulously, _this,_ this is the Power of Three? This is my legacy? The Wiccan Rede was just a poem to them, it seemed like. Personal gain was an afterthought, their respect for mortal life and autonomy was inconsistent, at best. Chris saw Wyatt every single day in their actions, their decisions, their recklessness and their stubborn, self-righteous egos, and some days, he almost couldn't _stand_ it. More than once he wondered if there was anything there to vanquish at all. Maybe, he thought, he was fooling himself that some big bad monster came up and lured his brother to the shadows. Maybe the very notion that a good witch can only be corrupted by force was naive. Maybe people are just...people, and all the light magic in the world can't hold someone back from a terrible path with a tempting goal at the end of it.

But then, inevitably: something would happen. Paige would jump in front of a fireball meant for an innocent, then brush it off afterwards like she was embarrassed by the attention. Piper would knock on his door, not even an hour after accusing him of all manner of nefarious, evil motivations, and force a bowl of spaghetti into his hands, gruffly ordering him to eat as much as he wanted. Phoebe would wordlessly hand him a bottle of aspirin just when a migraine would start to spike, subtly directing the others' attentions away so he could save face. Even Leo - goddamn, self-righteous Leo, would cock his head, in the middle of a motherfucking _argument_ , and say: "hey. You doin' okay? Sleeping better, and everything?"

The most frustrating man who has ever lived. The audacity of that, to be _sincere_ , at the same time that he was actively working against Chris' motives: it was appalling. Absolutely appalling. Chris felt like his head would just spin right off his neck.

It was a terrifying thing, to know them as flawed people, but even more terrifying was to know that they were also good people. Good, decent people, who _tried._ All his life, Chris had idolized his dead mother, villainized his absent father, and blamed it all on a monster under the bed: the secret agent demon who snuck into his big brother's nursery and turned him into a nightmare. And on some level he was right, because here he is now, in a world where the monster was vanquished, and his brother is a by-all-accounts decent human who wants to be a doctor and likes Harry Potter and tries his hardest too, even if he fucks up from time to time, jumps to conclusions and gets caught up in the adrenaline. Whatever.

But on another level, the level that matters: it wasn't that simple. Time travel is a Moebius puzzle made of iron - infinite possibilities, interconnected, and you can push and push and push at it until it kills you, and the only thing you'll change is the shit you don't care about: your aunt's hair color, the girl you ended up asking to Prom, the car your mom was driving when she died. But you can't stop the car crash unless you find the _right spot,_ the specific, correct push that sends the entire structure spinning off into something new. And what that push is probably has absolutely nothing to do with the end result you're preventing: step on a butterfly, and your mother lives. Step on the ant, too, and your brother doesn't kill the entire world.

Gideon was not the one who turned Wyatt evil - he was, quite simply, the right push. Wyatt's path to darkness was his own, a choice he made over and over again. The truth is that Chris doesn't know how he got there - he and Wyatt didn't grow up in the same house, never lived as brothers the way they obviously did in this world. Leo was the one who raised Wyatt. He spent most of his life Up There, among the Elders. Chris can't imagine that didn't contribute to his skewed understanding of the world. Especially for an angry young kid who had lain trapped in a crashed car with his mother's body for hours, crying out for help and receiving none from the very beings that were now telling him what being "good" meant.

Chris would be a cruel, selfish man to say such a thing to his parents. But it's true, and it's something he tried so hard to get them to understand: magic is a tool. Just a tool, that can be used for whatever purpose its user intends. It's the Goddess' mirror: whatever you show it will be what it reflects back. _An harm it none, do what ye will, be it love or ill: threefold its weight upon your soul._

It's the second part everyone has trouble remembering. He doesn't blame them; it's a lovely rhyme until you get to the end. Most things are much lovelier when you look at them that way.

* * *

"So," Chris says, in the darkness of her bedroom, "tell me."

Bianca rolls over onto her back, reaching out for his hand. He gives it, and she presses it to her bare stomach, flattening her own palm on top of his hand. It's a weird thing that she likes - pushing down on her abdomen, firmly with one palm, right below her bellybutton. Just steady, simple pressure - especially during sex. When pressed about it, all she used to say was that it felt good. "My mother worked for a demonic syndicate called The Brotherhood. They had her on an exclusive contract, which made her a lot of money - well, made _us_ a lot of money, since the leftovers are mine now - but it meant she couldn't take any jobs that weren't either for them, or approved by them. They were low level for the most part, but my mother kicked them into high gear - she was able to get targets they wouldn't have had a chance with otherwise."

"Did they have something on her?" Chris asks, frowning. Bianca's mother was one of the more skilled of the branch of Phoenixes that Bianca was born into (which are hardly organized enough to be called a "branch," but trying to chart Phoenix family history is...a headache, at best). But Lynn was formidable, even by Phoenix standards. He can't imagine her tying herself to a small-time syndicate like that.

"No. Maybe, I dunno. I never looked into it." Bianca pauses, breathing deeply through her nose. She presses down a bit harder on his hand, pushing it more firmly into her stomach. "She was killed on a job the same time that I woke up here. I was with her, at the time. If your theory's correct, then my other self probably died in the same incident."

"What _do_ you remember? What exactly happened?"

She shakes her head slowly; Chris can feel the movement better than he can see it. "It's all jumbled. I was in the house...there was a fire. Mom was already gone." She pauses again, painfully. Years of pain, in that pause. "I dunno. I was eleven, I don't remember much of those days. Lots of police, hospitals. You know."

Chris flexes his fingers against her abdomen, pressing his lips silently against the edge of her shoulder.

"Beatrix and Helena adopted me out of obligation to my mother. They didn't love me, didn't even want me around, especially when I started talking crazy shit about the Halliwells." She laughs, sharply and bitterly. "And it sounded pretty fucking crazy."

"I can't imagine," Chris says. At least his brain was developed enough to process it, when he arrived here. His body was the same age, and he was alone, in bed, in a safe situation while he adjusted...no, he can't imagine it. "When do your memories stop? Of the other timeline?"

"I remember going back to 2003 to retrieve you on his orders," she says somberly. "But the last thing is...the club? Your mother's club. We were...in the back room?"

Chris nods, another theory clicking into place. "You died. That's why you don't remember. I don't remember mine, either."

"Who killed you?" she demands, as if she's going to tear her way back through spacetime to give them a talking to.

"An Elder, apparently," Chris says. "It doesn't matter. Whatever happened, it must have worked."

"Evidently." Bianca turns onto her side, pulling his hand up to kiss his palm. "Was it you? Or one of the sisters? Did I...force your hand?"

" _No_ ," Chris says, a knee-jerk reaction, "Jesus, no. No, it was him. I went back through the portal with you, and he - " he chokes on the words. "It was him."

Bianca doesn't say anything, she just kisses his hand again, leaving her lips pressed to his skin for a long, extended moment.

"I'd hoped it was you," she says finally. "When I went back, I thought maybe that's how it'd end. I would've been okay with that."

" _I_ wouldn't have," Chris says hotly. A flush of remembered anger makes him pull his hand back - that sting of seeing her again, out of nowhere, but not _his,_ wearing the clothes his brother favored, with her face cold and distant - "You didn't honestly think he was going to keep his word. How did he really convince you? What did he threaten you with? You told me, _swore_ to me, that you wouldn't let him bully you - I mean Christ, whatever he did was going to be undone anyway - "

"I know," Bianca snaps, rolling away slightly. Her voice is thin and reedy; Chris winces at the sound of it. "He just - he captured me. Alright? He had me for awhile, and I broke. And that's it."

"Jesus," Chris says again, sitting up in the bed. The air feels like smoke, suddenly, his throat rough and tight. "Sorry. I'm sorry I - "

"Don't." Bianca tugs at his elbow, urging him back into the warmth of the blankets. "You were right to be angry."

Chris doesn't speak, his throat still choked with emotion. No wonder she came on so strong. He thought she'd done it because she was trying to protect him from anyone else Wyatt would've sent - but the truth that she was trying to _provoke_ him, in her own way - that she was almost _hoping_ she'd be killed, because it was the easiest, most painless way out -

"Shh," Bianca says, pulling him close, pressing her lips against the side of his face. "It was all undone anyway. Remember?"

"Yeah," Chris murmurs, "I do, we both do. That's the problem, isn't it?"

Bianca takes a shuddery breath, her fingers clenching against his upper arm. Chris pulls the blankets up, back over their shoulders, and she nestles in, sliding her feet against his bare calves.

"Probably good we don't remember _everything_ ," she mumbles. "It must feel like shit to die. Especially when it's someone you hate."

"Probably," Chris agrees.

"I saw the changes," she continues, hushed. "I could tell the differences. The first one was huge...like a ripple, a forcefield or something that swept all the way across the world. Just a few hours after you went through. Nothing huge was altered right away, of course, just the order of certain events, but...I remembered the difference. That's why Wyatt came after me so quickly - he figured out right away that I'd helped you, and for some reason that made me immune to the timeline alterations."

"I couldn't make it work the first time," Chris confesses, stroking her hair. "I had to keep going forward. I thought that I must've been fucking up, exposing myself too obviously, for you to have known which year I was in."

"That was Wyatt. He had psychics working around the clock, tracking your movements. Almost everything you did."

The thought makes Chris shudder, bone-deep. Watching every move he made, from years in the future. God, what a _bastard._

Neither of them speak for a long time, but Chris can tell she's still awake - adjusting her position, breathing unevenly. But just laying there, in the quiet. Touching gently, sighing occasionally, warm and present. It occurs to him that he's going to have to get used to this - his dream being made real. It's going to take him a while, probably.

"Who do you think it is?" Chris finally asks. "The shapeshifter."

"One of Wyatt's, obviously," Bianca replies. "But it's definitely not Max. Whoever it is killed Max and took over her operation, nearly three years ago. Most of us - Phoenixes, I mean - know by now, but for awhile she was able to fool us."

"Was that before or after you made contact with Chris?"

"Before. But just barely." Bianca is quiet for a moment. "I think she's the one bringing people over. She uses poison to kill them, something that kills their brain, so that they get replaced by their other selves instead of just dying. I hadn't put the pieces together, until recently, but - "

"You don't think she's _causing_ it somehow?"

"I don't know how - what kind of magic could cause this?" Bianca asks. "No - the cause must be related to what we did, somehow. Fucking with time, on the scale that we did - it's got to have consequences."

 _Threefold its weight upon your soul_ , Chris thinks. It's not the first time it's occurred to him.

"Taking advantage, then, of a situation she can leverage," Chris says. "Could be Maya. She was pretty fucking devoted, in a way the others weren't - plus they were sleeping together - "

"No. She would've gone straight for Wyatt. Brought him over first thing."

"Maybe that's why she went after Chris," he says. "Maybe Wyatt was too protected. Maybe he's the end goal, and she went after Chris because he was the weak link, the way in."

"Of course Wyatt's the end goal," Bianca says, a bit impatiently. "But why did she kill him, then? It would've worked better to her advantage to keep him alive - she had a perfect way in: a flawless cover, complete with an engagement ring and everything. But instead - she killed him, and brought _you_ here. Why? She had to have known that was stupid, no matter who she is. There was not a single person in Wyatt's employ who didn't know _exactly_ how dangerous you are. I know that because I made sure of it."

She's right. Even if she hadn't known what he was capable of, it still would've made more sense to keep his other self alive - the one who trusted her, loved her, believed her. Not the Chris who organized a Resistance against her leader, and sacrificed his life trying to destroy their regime before it even had the chance to begin.

"P.J. told me that he went to the Underworld to try and contact you," Chris says. "The other Wyatt, I mean. But they don't know she's a shapeshifter. All she'd have to do - "

" _Fuck_ ," Bianca says sharply. She sighs; he can feel her shaking her head, in irritation, or disbelief, maybe.

"We'll have to talk to my family," he says, resigned to it. It was going to happen eventually, but he'd hoped to put it off a little longer, at least. "They need to know what we know."

"Yeah." Bianca angles her head down, burrowing in against his chest. "Yeah, I know."

"It won't be that bad," Chris says, trying for a joke: "after my chat with P.J. they'll probably want to kill me more than they want to kill you. They might even _like_ you, once we tell them everything."

"I think I effectively fucked that possibility in the ass when I threatened to kill your mother as I was forcibly kidnapping you," Bianca says, half muffled from how her cheek is mushed up against her collarbone.

Chris kisses her forehead. "Well, I'll explain that, too. It's almost romantic when you know the context."

Bianca mutters something unintelligible and deeply skeptical.

"I love you," Chris reminds her. "I won't let them disrespect you, and I'm definitely not gonna let them hurt you. Not ever again."

"Now _that's_ romantic," Bianca says softly. Chris kisses her forehead again, letting his eyes fall closed.


	8. Chapter 8

In the original timeline, Chris was raised largely by Phoebe, which made connecting to her younger self in 2003 extremely difficult. Chris' Phoebe was a ruthless, tunnel-visioned warrior, whittled down by years of grief and loss. She never married, never had children of her own. After Piper died, and Leo and Wyatt left, she sold the Manor and started moving them around the country with Billie's help, jumping from one revenge-fueled vendetta to another. Training him in magic, teaching him how to fight - because she'd Seen what was coming. She knew what lay ahead for him. And she was determined, to the point of obsession, to make sure that he was ready for it.

He was a little worried about meeting his mother, but truthfully his grief for Piper was a familiar thing, a comforting pain that he's lived with for most of his life. It wasn't until after he knew her as a person that he started to really _feel_ it - it was her absence that he always mourned, not _her._ But Phoebe - Goddess, Aunt Phoebe. There's not a single minute that he's lived since her death that he hasn't mourned her loss deeply, all the way down to his bones. And what made it exponentially worse was that the Phoebe he knew in 2003 was so radically different from his Aunt Pheebs that he didn't even recognize her. It doesn't even matter now that she's technically alive - because the person he knew, the woman who raised him, is very, very dead. And all the time travel in the world isn't going to bring her back.

The stubborn, heartfelt, cheerful Phoebe of 2003 was like salt in the wound - Chris didn't handle it very well. He provoked all of them on purpose, simply to keep his distance, but with Phoebe - he didn't mean to. He really didn't - it just happened. He'd listen to her talk, or he'd look at her face, and he'd just feel this boiling, burning _anger_ \- how dare she? How dare she walk around with his aunt's face, and not be his aunt? How dare she treat him like a stranger?

It wasn't her fault, of course. It wasn't anyone's fault but the person who killed her, whose identity remains a mystery to Chris to this day. But it didn't make it easier, and it certainly didn't help his relationship with her younger self.

Still, Phoebe was the one who could tell, back in 2004 after Bianca died. He knew that she sensed the truth, and she was the one who kept the others quiet on the subject - another example of the silent, hands-off kindness that she always showed him, regardless of how often they disagreed. And if P.J. followed his direction to tell her what she and Wyatt have been doing, then she'll also be the one with the best, most accurate grasp on the situation. In short: Chris needs to get over himself.

The Phoebe Halliwell branch of the family lives in the top floor of a converted warehouse, which is surprising until he figures out that the rest of the apartments in the building sit empty, perpetually unrented. Convenient, he thinks dryly. He's convinced Bianca not to come, again, if only because they both know her presence will change the tone of the conversation significantly. At any rate, she seems a bit less paranoid now that the spell is broken.

"Just promise me you'll talk to me before you do anything," Bianca says. "Whatever move they wanna make - even if it's a good idea - you come find me first."

"Of course," Chris says gently. This restlessness and fretting hadn't been part of her, in the other world, and it worries Chris a little. But she's been through a lot, by all indications, and even if it's a permanent personality shift, it's an adjustment he's more than willing to make. "Don't worry, I'll be fine."

Bianca punches his shoulder. Hard. "Shut up! That's what the guy always says right before he gets killed."

Chris snorts, refusing to wince or rub his shoulder, even though she did hit him pretty hard. "What does the guy say right before he goes off for an awkward conversation with his estranged family and then returns completely unharmed?"

"'See you later,'" Bianca says.

"See you later," Chris replies obediently.

Bianca sighs. "No, we ruined it. It's already jinxed. I'll write you a script next time."

"I mean, I'd appreciate that," says Chris, laughing a little. She cracks a smile too, so he counts it as a victory regardless.

The whole building is warded, but Chris is able to orb in without incident. That, plus the steaming cup of coffee waiting on the counter, a small container of the coffee creamer he took a liking to in 2003 beside it, confirms his suspicions that she knew he was coming. Chris sighs, looking around. There's nobody in the kitchen, but he can hear a television in the other room, turned up deliberately loud.

Chris leaves the coffee where it is - the last thing he needs for this conversation is a _stimulant_ \- and goes to find her. She's waiting for him in the living room, a large mug in her hands, not even pretending to watch the TV. She looks up at his entrance, and her eyes tear up.

"Chris," she says, setting the mug down on a large, antique coffee table. Chris takes in the room, and her with it - a lot of the old antiques he'd noticed missing from the Manor are now here - the big mirror that used to hang in the foyer, the claw-footed couch from the attic. Phoebe herself looks much the same - a few more wrinkles, maybe, but she's aged very well. Her hair is long again, almost to her waist. Chris is thankful for that - his own Aunt Pheebs had kept it short, almost unflatteringly so. Appearances help, in keeping people straight, he's found.

"Hey, Phoebe." She covers her mouth with one hand, turning the TV off with a remote in her other, but she doesn't make a move to stand, or move towards him. He sits down gingerly, a few seats away on the couch, and attempts a smile. "Long time no see."

She barks out a watery laugh, wiping a few tears from the corners of her eyes. "In a manner of speaking," she says wobbily. "Wow. It really is you. I mean - _2003_ you. Future Chris. Leo told us, but I hadn't been able to...picture it, I guess."

Chris looks away, a lump of guilt in his throat. "I didn't mean for this to happen," he says. "I'm...sorry. About your nephew."

Phoebe is quiet for a long moment, tears still making her eyes glisten. At least she doesn't try to deny it. "We know it wasn't deliberate," she finally says, quietly. Chris blows out a careful, relieved breath. "I had a vision of this. Early this morning - was that when you decided to come talk?"

"Yeah. Did P.J. speak to you?"

"Yes." Phoebe leans forward, clasping her hands together on her knees. "I'm...sorry. We didn't know what P.J. and Wyatt were getting into...I hope Bianca's alright."

"She's fine. She's been through worse."

"Hm." Phoebe peers at him curiously, her face lined with sadness and stress. "Piper and Paige are downstairs. I should tell you that right now."

"I figured they'd be close by." Chris looks around at the atmospheric, draped living area - deliberately styled to look like the Manor, which makes sense. He wonders who made the decision to turn the actual Manor into a Bed Bath and Beyond catalog - Piper, presumably. But Chris always thought she was the one holding onto the old decor so tightly, so who knows? "Do you own the entire building?"

"Coop and I do." Phoebe pauses. "Coop is my - "

"Husband. Cupid husband." He smiles at her. "Very fitting, I have to say."

She snorts. "I think that's a compliment? I'm gonna go ahead and take it as one."

"It was," Chris says honestly.

She smiles in acknowledgment. "After Hurricane Owen, property prices nosedived. A lot of people have moved out of the city over the past ten years or so, because of the storms...so we bought it for cheap and fixed it up. We live up here, but the kids use the other apartments when they want to. We rent some of them out for extra money, but not long term. Airbnb - you know what that is? - well, anyway - we do vacation rentals, basically. We'll do long term ones for other witches, sometimes. Billie lived here for awhile with her fiance." Phoebe pauses, another wave of pain passing over her face. "That was before...the same thing happened to her that just happened to you."

"Billie had a fiance?" Chris asks, surprised. "The Billie from this timeline?"

Phoebe nods. "A mortal woman named Bridget - wait, you know she's gay, right?" Chris nods, snorting to himself. Anybody who's met Billie for more than two seconds knows she's gay. "Well - yeah. Bridget Mackenzie. She was nice - a little boring, maybe, especially for Billie's usual type. But a nice person. She moved back East after...the other Billie appeared. I don't know what happened exactly - neither of them said much. But I can't imagine she was...kind about it."

"Billie is never kind about anything," Chris says with a huff. "I think I get that from her."

Phoebe smiles sadly at him. "She's talked to me quite a bit, you know," she says. "All kinds of secrets about your childhood. Stuff I would have killed to know about you, back in '03."

"She told you about how you died? Piper, too?" Phoebe nods, the teasing smile fading. "Yeah. I figured. She was talking to Chris, too. Bianca told me that he knew a lot of details, mostly from talking to Billie."

Phoebe tears up again. "He never told us," she says, pressing two fingers to her lips. "He never asked us any questions, or anything."

"He probably knew it was pointless," Chris says gently. "He could find out more from going around you, and he knew that you'd try to discourage him."

Phoebe reaches out, tentatively, and gently touches his arm. Chris' first instinct is to pull away, but his main objective for this meeting is to not be a dick, so instead he moves closer, taking her hand in his. She smiles gratefully, through her tears.

"I've missed you so much," she confesses. "I know that's horrible. Our Chris…" she trails off painfully, shaking her head. "I never would've wanted this to happen, not in a million years. I loved him to pieces. Our sweet little peanut." She squeezes his hand, hard. "But I still missed _you._ Isn't that terrible? Missing someone who's right next to you? You probably know exactly what I mean."

Chris takes a deep breath. "I do."

"We all did. Your dad's been messed up about you for years - that's why he and Piper finally split for good, you know. Or one of the reasons. I always hoped that Chris didn't sense it, but I think he did. I think that's why he wanted to know - " Phoebe chokes up, wiping tears from her cheeks again. "God. We've made such a mess of things."

"That's why I stayed away," Chris says. "I didn't know how to - I never would've done this, wanted it to end like this. I knew what I was signing up for, when I went back. I was never planning to survive it."

Phoebe puts her free hand over her eyes, clutching his hand tightly, shaking her head silently.

"I'll talk to Piper if you think I should, but when I woke up here, I thought it would be…" Chris struggles for the right word. "...disrespectful. Pushy, or something. I don't know."

"I understand." Phoebe sniffles, wiping her face. Her makeup is a mess. "She wants to see you. You know we love you, Chris. I can't promise it'll be easy, for any of us, but the last thing we want is for you to disappear."

Chris doesn't reply for a moment, concentrating on keeping his composure. "Alright."

"I hope what happened with the kids didn't sour Bianca on us forever," Phoebe says. "She, um, remembers too, I assume? The other timeline?"

He nods. "She doesn't blame any of you, not even P.J., she's just…"

"Wary. I get it. I would be too, probably." Phoebe takes a deep breath. "I understand if it's too much right now, but...they're downstairs, and I have a feeling you didn't just come for family time - "

"No." Chris clears his throat. "No, I didn't. I'm not sure what P.J. told you, but - "

"Mimi's evil?" Phoebe smiles wryly. "Yeah. We might be a few steps farther ahead than you think. We should pow-wow."

"Only if you promise not to call it a 'pow-wow' again," Chris replies.

She snorts. "You were always too proud to really appreciate my sense of humor," she says loftily. Despite himself, Chris laughs.

* * *

Seeing Piper again is...a lot. She looks exactly the same and completely different, all at the same time.

"Jesus Christ," she mutters, pulling him into a hug that seems to last for hours. The room spins a little, from the point of view within her arms. "Jesus Christ, just look at you. My boy." She touches his face when she finally pulls away, her palm cool and dry, her face set in stone - almost angry. "Look at you."

"Piper," he says, laying his hand against hers, pressing it more firmly against his cheek. "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

"It's not your fault, baby," Piper says firmly, her eyes narrowing. Chris is reminded eerily of P.J., glaring at him suspiciously in the gloom of the Manor's attic. "None of this is your fault."

"I'm still sorry," Chris tells her. Piper nods stiffly, drawing him into another short hug. She's breathing quickly, almost panting, and she turns her face away as soon as it ends, putting her back to the entire room, her shoulders trembling. Chris forces himself to look away, his chest aching - an actual pain, as if the open wound is physical instead of emotional.

Paige has a baby with her, which is maybe only marginally less surprising than her appearance, which is almost exactly the same as it'd been in 2004. Whereas Piper and Phoebe are definitely middle-aged - still beautiful of course, but not young anymore either - but Paige could still pass for a woman in her thirties. Not as obviously frozen in time as Leo, but still...unnatural.

She makes a face right before she hugs him, squeezing his shoulders tight - half admonishment, and half greeting. "You gave us quite a scare," she says. "Wow. I like the beard. You look so different!"

"You don't," Chris says wryly.

"Thank you," Paige says, fluttering her eyelashes comically. "Those good 'ol Whitelighter genes. Keeps me fresh...apparently."

Chris spares a thought for her mortal husband, and looks down at the baby, dozing peacefully in one of those portable bassinets. Phoebe is sitting cross-legged on the floor, one hand protectively on its rim. "You can't control it, like…" he trails off uncertainty.

"We call him He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named," Paige says helpfully. Piper, her back still turned, snorts loudly. "No, this would be...an unfortunate side effect of the angelic half of my parentage. On the plus side," she says, flipping her hair peppily, "it's great for my self-esteem! I don't even get carded at bars."

Phoebe huffs out a quiet laugh. "When was the last time you went to a bar?"

"Hey, I go places, and do things," Paige says half-heartedly.

Chris shakes his head, feeling surreal. Twenty-four years have elapsed since the last time he was in a room with these women, and it still feels exactly the same. "Who's this?" he asks. "I thought your son was older."

"He is - almost three now," Paige says, leaning over the bassinet to fuss with the baby's blanket. "This is James - he's the son of one of my charges. She died recently, and we've been...taking care of him, while we come up with something more permanent." Her face sobers. "My little boy, Henry Jr., is with Henry and You-Know-Who, you know, _Up There._ We thought it best to keep them out of the way until we figure out what's going on. Parker and Peyton - Pheebs' youngest ones - are with them, too."

"But you kept the _baby_ with you?"

"He didn't really give us a choice, on that," Phoebe says fondly, rocking the baby gently. "He can teleport, just like his birth mom could. Follows us wherever we go."

The baby can't be more than a year old, but Chris remembers Wyatt doing the same thing - orbing out of his crib constantly, driving Piper to distraction. "Stubborn kid. He'll fit right in, I imagine."

"We haven't discussed adopting him," Paige says quickly. A little too quickly. Chris locks eyes with Phoebe, who covers her mouth with one hand.

"Oh, please," Piper says, finally turning around. Her eyes are red, but she looks otherwise unmoved. "Get real, Paige. Of course you're gonna adopt him; Henry's been fixing up the nursery for weeks now."

"He's not a dog, we can't just...keep him because he's cute," Paige protests, but it's pathetically weak. She waves her hand. "Anyway. That's not what we're here to talk about. Evil fiance at large, remember?"

"And Wyatt," Piper says sharply. Chris and Paige both startle, at her tone, and she visibly grimaces. "Sorry. I'm just...sorry. Wyatt's missing, Chris. P.J. told you what he was doing?" He nods. "She says she heard from him yesterday, around noon. They have this spelled notebook they use to communicate, and he wrote a message to her saying he'd found a lead on Bianca." She nods in Chris' direction. "A fake one, obviously. There's been nothing since. Richard and I have been down there all morning, scrying for him - and nothing."

Chris blinks. "Richard? You don't mean...Richard Montana?" He looks over at Paige. "I thought you married a mortal."

Paige laughs nervously. "Boy, have you missed a lot."

Piper clears her throat. "Richard is...a friend of the family," she says delicately. "He's been helping me look for Wyatt, and that's all we need to talk about right now."

Chris looks incredulously over at the other sisters, both of whom look torn between laughter and intense discomfort. "You've gotta be kidding me."

"Hey, buddy, the love of _your_ life is a demonic assassin who once tried to kill our entire timeline," Paige says. "Maybe we can have the 'you're dating who?!' talk later."

Chris rubs his forehead, sighing deeply. "I thought he was like, addicted to magic or something…?"

"We'll catch you up later," Piper says decisively, apparently refusing to be embarrassed. Chris eyes her skeptically, to which she frowns in response, shooting him a Look. "The point is that your brother is in trouble, _as usual_ , and there's an evil something-or-other out there we need to vanquish. Chris, I assume you have some information for us, about that...particular situation?"

"Yeah," Chris says resignedly, sinking down onto an ottoman, close to where Phoebe is sitting. "Yeah, well, first off, 'Miranda Schoell' is a cover. She's a shapeshifter. The IDs she used to get the job in Oakland are magical fakes. Her internet accounts were magicked up, too - there's no such person in any mortal records that exists before a few years ago."

"Shoulda seen that one coming," Paige mutters.

"She's also been impersonating a Phoenix named Maxine Shaw. Bianca is fairly certain that Mimi - or whatever her name is - killed her and took over her operation around the same time that she created the Miranda Schoell identity."

"And started in on Chris," Piper says, her voice hardening. "He met her two years ago. They didn't start dating until recently, though - that's why we didn't look closer at her. She was just...one of his friends, we thought."

"Yeah, then all of a sudden they're in love, they're getting married, he's never loved anyone like he loves her," Paige says disdainfully, shaking her head. "Evil bitch probably cast some sort of love spell on him. I _knew_ he was acting strange."

"Paige," Phoebe says quietly. Paige looks over at Piper, staring stoically at the floor, and visibly snaps her mouth shut. "We knew something was off when you disappeared, Chris. She was always a little skittish around us, but - hey, we're intimidating. We know it." She smiles weakly. "And we thought she was mortal, so we were all trying not to slip up - it's been awhile since we had to pretend for somebody. So we just thought that we were coming off...you know, weird."

"Right, but even an unassuming, innocent mortal would start to catch on after a _year_ or two," Paige says dryly.

Phoebe sighs. "Chris kept her away from us, Paige. We had no idea what their life in Nevada was like. He'd been acting...withdrawn," she says, directing her words to Chris again. "But we thought it was just...a phase. Pulling away, trying to, you know, have your own life. All the kids will go through that eventually. But then...he disappeared - _you_ disappeared, I should say - and she didn't even call us. The only reason we found out you were gone so quickly is because you had a dinner date with P.J. that you skipped out on."

"So that's what clued you in?" Chris asks. "She didn't get in touch quick enough?"

"No," Phoebe says, "what clued us in was that Paige walked in on her going through your magic stuff."

"This was the day after you skipped town," Paige explains. "Piper and I went to your place as soon as we figured out something was wrong. You were gone, obviously, but Mimi was there, rifling through your magic books. She tried to play it off but it was obvious she was hiding something."

"I thought Chris had told her the truth," Piper says, a bit hoarsely. "I thought maybe - he told her who he was, and she took it badly? She seemed _scared_ of us - or so I thought. So we let her go. Stupid." She shakes her head, frowning angrily.

"There wasn't anything we could have done at that point, sweetie," Phoebe says softly. The atmosphere thickens, all three women going quiet and sad.

"So," Phoebe says, rubbing at her eyes again, "we had no idea what had been going on with Wyatt and P.J. and Bianca...no idea that Mimi had even _met_ P.J., let alone spun her off into such a frenzy. But we knew something was off, so we kept an eye on her, and that's when she vanished, too. So we looked into her further, and found the same things you did - the faked paperwork and everything. God, if we'd only told the kids sooner - but..."

"Is P.J. alright?" Chris asks quietly.

"No," Phoebe replies, smiling wanly. "But thanks for asking."

"It has to be one of the crossovers," Paige cuts in. "That's what we call magicals who remember the original timeline. For the longest time, the only ones we encountered were demons, so we thought it must have been something the other Wyatt did, after he found out what you were doing - "

"He always knew what I was doing," Chris interrupts. "You saw the only attempt he made that got close to being successful. He was powerful, but not omniscient - he didn't have the power to fight _time travel._ "

"Well, we know that now," Phoebe says wryly. "There's Billie, of course. She crossed over a while ago - years now. We thought she was the exception to the rule because of how it happened, but now we know...that's how it _always_ happens. Not just any death - but a specific kind. A death that preserves your body, for your other self to step into."

Chris lets that sit for a moment, eyeing Piper out of the corner of his eye. She doesn't react, aside from crossing her arms stiffly. "It has to be someone from our timeline. But we don't have any ideas about who - it could be anyone. Maybe somebody neither of us even met."

"You can't think of anyone who could shapeshift that would have a grudge against us?" Paige pushes.

"Almost any magical powerful enough can figure out how to shapeshift," Chris says. "You three have done it, even. It's not that hard - with enough practice, you can make it seem like a natural-given power. So no, we don't have any strong theories. Anyone we can think of that would have evil motivations would have gone for Wyatt first."

"Well, she's gone for Wyatt now," Piper says, quietly furious. The room falls silent, in response.

"We'll find him, Piper," Phoebe says quietly. "We will." Piper blows out a frustrated breath, running one hand through her hair. "The goal has to be to bring the other Wyatt over."

"I can't even begin to tell you how disastrous that would be," Chris tells them gravely. "I don't mean to insult the Wyatt you know, and I know that he's good, but my Wyatt...he would _ruin_ this world."

"We met him," Paige says quietly, "once. Long story. But - we know. We get it, Chris."

"So." Piper claps her hands. "Game plan - Paige, you need to stay with James, so you're on research duty. Phoebe's got plenty of texts here, and we already know the Book doesn't have anything helpful."

"All-purpose vanquishing potion for a shapeshifter slash maybe witch slash who knows," Paige says, nodding, "on it."

"I need to get back to P.J.," Phoebe says apologetically. She looks over at Chris, carefully neutral. "I shouldn't...leave her alone for too long, right now."

"Then Chris and I will go back to the Underworld," Piper says decisively. "We'll get in touch if we find Wyatt. Everyone good?"

"I need to talk to Bianca first," Chris says firmly.

"I'll come with you then," Piper says, her face set, leaving no room for argument. "I'd like to talk to her anyway. It's past time for us to talk, actually."

Chris grimaces. "I'm not sure you realize how intimidating that sounds, Piper."

Piper rolls her eyes. "I'm not gonna vanquish her."

"She's just naturally intimidating, Chris," Paige says. "She can't help it - it's just her personality." Piper makes a face at her.

"I still think it would be a better idea to - "

"Chris," Piper says flatly. She closes her eyes momentarily, opening them again after a long, tense second. "I know you don't remember your life here, and I'm not asking you to. I'm not asking you to be the son I know. But you're still my son. You're _my son._ " She jabs one of her fingers into his chest, her face fierce. Towering over him where he's still sitting on the ottoman, she looks a little unhinged, her eyes rimmed with red. "We'll work it out; we always do. But don't ask me to let you out of my sight again. Not until this is over. _Please._ "

Chris blinks, his chest seizing in pain again. "Alright," he says, standing up, easing her out of his personal space. She takes a sharp step back, closing her eyes again, mouth tight. "Okay. That's fair."

"Thank you." Piper crosses her arms once more, looking over to Paige and Phoebe, who are watching soberly, expressions impossibly sad.

"We need some kind of signal," Chris says, swallowing the lump in his throat. "We can't assume she won't try to impersonate one of us. Paige, Phoebe - your husbands, are they - "

"Already covered, kid," Paige says. Reaching into her pocket, she pulls out a small coin, threaded on a piece of string. "Here, take this - it's something P.J. came up with, actually." She glances over at Phoebe, who smiles. "It's keyed to the family magic, it'll help you verify that we are who we say we are." She holds it up to Chris' chest. " _Halliwell Revelare._ " The coin glows with soft, blue light, and Paige smiles. "See? She made one for everybody."

Chris takes it gingerly, wrapping the string carefully around the wrist. "Very clever."

"That's my girl," Phoebe says proudly. "Clever."

Chris nods, not trusting himself to speak. Phoebe smiles at him gently, as if sensing his thoughts - which, come to think of it, she probably is.

"We also can't ignore the possibility that she'll impersonate Wyatt," Piper says quietly. "She has to know we're onto her by now. If she's from your original timeline, Chris, then she knows who Bianca is to you. She must have found out our Chris was talking to her, and knew she was on borrowed time - that's why she messed with P.J.'s head. It was a preemptive strike, to buy herself more time alone with him."

"And it worked," Chris says quietly. "But I still don't understand - why me? If the end goal was Wyatt - why bring me over? There's not a single person from my world that would've thought I'd be on his side."

A long, tense silence. "Maybe it was a mistake?" Paige says tentatively. "Or maybe - she's got some other plan."

"There's no use in speculating," Piper says sharply. The words sound like they cost her quite a bit to say. "Wyatt walked right into her hands by heading down to the Underworld. She's probably impersonating Bianca, since that's who he was looking for. And since she knows _we'll_ be looking for them now, then she'll probably make herself look like him to throw us off." Piper's mouth is a flat, tense line. "And if she is the one bringing people over, then she might have already - "

"No," Phoebe interrupts, so loudly the baby jerks in his bassinet, whimpering. Paige immediately bends down to soothe him, and the room freezes for the long moment it takes for him to settle again, falling fitfully back to sleep. "Sorry. But - no. Let's not go there yet."

"We'll find him," Chris says firmly. "There's no other option."

Piper nods in agreement, touching his elbow briefly. "You're so - "

"What?"

Piper glances over at Phoebe and Paige again, her face unreadable. "Nothing. We're just glad you're here, baby."

Chris locks eyes with Phoebe, still sitting protectively next to James' bassinet. Paige, absurdly young but still looking more put together than all of them, curls up next to her on the floor, reaching down to gently stroke his sleeping head. All that time he lived with them, manipulated them, and told himself he didn't love them - and he never realized how full of shit he was. Of course he loved them. Of course he did.

"Me too," he says. Yeah, he means it. Mostly. "Yeah. I'm glad I'm here, too."


	9. Chapter 9

Bianca and Piper approach each other so warily that it's almost funny. It was definitely funny, the way Bianca jumped to her feet, squeaking out loud the second she saw Piper standing behind Chris as they orbed into her apartment. Not that Chris is ever going to say that to her. He does value his life at least a little bit.

"You know," Bianca says tensely, gripping the edge of the counter, "when I asked you to talk to me before you did anything, I didn't think you were going to bring your mother along for the conversation."

"She insisted," Chris says.

"Sorry to intrude," Piper says flatly, not sounding all that sorry. She strides around the counter, thrusting out her hand, and Bianca flinches. "I'm Piper Halliwell. We've met before, but I think we got off on the wrong foot."

Bianca shakes her hand gingerly, eyes darting over to Chris nervously. "Um. Yes. I am...very sorry about that. Um. Ma'am."

Piper snorts, pulling her hand back. "Don't pull a muscle or anything, hon."

Chris steps in quickly, physically putting himself between the two tense, narrow-eyed women. "Nobody's heard from Wyatt since yesterday, Bianca, they think Mimi has him. Piper and I are going to the Underworld to look for him - we need you with us."

"Well duh I'm coming," Bianca says. "Do you have a lead or are we just gonna wander around yelling his name?"

Piper stiffens, like she's been insulted, but Chris cuts in quickly before it can escalate. "What bar did you meet the other Chris at? And do you remember who the Whitelighter was that was with him?"

"It was one of Bune's," Bianca says immediately. "Not the big one, one of the smaller, shittier ones. Lots of, ahem - " she glances at Piper, "business transactions."

"Business transactions?" Piper repeats, incredulous.

Bianca winces. "Sorry, ma'am, I didn't think - I mean, not implying that Chris was engaged in any - certainly not with me - "

"Is she making fun of me?" Piper demands, turning to Chris. "The 'ma'am' thing - is that mocking, or just unintentionally insulting?"

"She thinks you're here to kill her, of course she's not making fun of you," Chris snaps, rolling his eyes.

"I do not think that, I'm just - you didn't warn me!" Bianca protests, and the same time that Piper says, "somehow I find it hard to believe anybody you would marry would call me 'ma'am' sincerely - "

"Hey," Chris says, "I thought we were starting a new foot?"

Piper huffs. "As long as she doesn't call me ma'am," she mutters.

Bianca visibly stops herself from replying. "I don't know who the other Whitelighter was," she says to Chris. "I don't make a habit of getting to know them personally. He was kind of short, maybe five four or so, brown skin, prominent chin, black hair to his shoulders. Didn't get a closer look at him to see any more details."

"That was Wyatt," Piper says immediately. "He has a glamour spell he uses that looks like that...plus, Chris wouldn't go down to the Underworld without him."

Bianca glances at Chris, but doesn't say anything. Chris looks away; he certainly doesn't want to contradict Piper on that one, either.

"If Wyatt was...unfamiliar with the Underworld," Chris says delicately, "then he'd stick to a familiar place. It's likely he went back to that same bar at some point, when he was looking for Bianca."

"People know me there," Bianca adds. "They'd point him in the right direction if he told them he wanted to hire me. If Mimi was after him, all she'd have to do is shift into me, show her face somewhere prominently, and Wyatt would track her down himself."

"But she wouldn't keep him there," Piper says in frustration. "We tried scrying for him, but it didn't work, so it's likely she has him somewhere shielded. That's what we should be looking for - unless you think she'd hide him on Earth somewhere - "

"No, she wouldn't risk Earth, she knows you could scry or summon him," Chris says. "And there are plenty of places in the Underworld that are shielded from scrying magic. So many, in fact, that we'd need something to narrow them down. And the way to do that is to trace his steps, Piper - figure out the details. Any detail would help, to give us a clue as to where she might have taken him."

"I can do that," Bianca says quietly. "They'll talk to me. But a Charmed One?" She shakes her head.

"I do know how to do a glamour spell too," Piper snaps. "I wasn't exactly planning on waltzing down there with 'I'm a Halliwell' painted on my back."

"They can sense your power, Piper," Chris says gently. "You know that." Piper blows out another frustrated breath, rubbing her forehead with two fingers. "I know this is a lot. I'm sorry if - "

"No. It's fine, I'm fine." Piper smiles tensely. "Fight now, grieve later. Might as well be the Halliwell family motto, right?"

Chris winces and looks away, unable to bear the sight of her expression. Bianca is staring at the ground, her face a cold mask of neutrality. The knowledge that they're both grieving a version of himself he'll never know is a surreal, painful truth.

"We'll slow her down," Chris says carefully. "She can get the information more quickly on her own."

"Well I'm not just going to do nothing," Piper snaps.

"We're not," Chris says, thinking quickly. "You and I are going to find Richard and fill him in, because we're going to need all the help we can get. He's still down there, right?"

Piper rolls her eyes. "That's - "

"It won't take me long," Bianca interrupts firmly. The effect is somewhat ruined by the way she flinches when Piper looks over at her, flinty-eyed. "Seriously - an hour, tops."

Piper purses her lips, tapping one hand against the side of her leg. "Chris, can you excuse us for a second? I'd like to speak to Bianca alone for a second."

"Absolutely fucking not," Chris says. Both women turn, almost in tandem, to glare at him.

"I know that sounded like a question, but it actually wasn't a question," Piper says, her face unforgiving. Chris opens his mouth, a smart reply on the tip of his tongue, but he thinks better of it when he sees her clenched fists, flexing and unflexing at her side.

"It's okay, babe," Bianca says quietly. She still looks a little pale, but she crosses her arms, looking determined. "She has more than a right."

Chris sighs. "Please don't kill each other," he pleads.

Bianca rolls her eyes at him. "God, you're so melodramatic," she says.

"Oh, so he's always been that way?" Piper asks, raising her eyebrows. "Unsurprising."

"Jesus, fine, I'm leaving," says Chris.

* * *

Chris paces in the bedroom for five minutes; either Bianca and Piper truly are just talking, or one of them cast a silencing spell before they started beating each other up. Chris decides to trust that it's the former, and gives them another three minutes before emerging again.

Bianca is gone. Chris stops short in the middle of the living room and eyes Piper, who is leaning against the kitchen island, her arms crossed.

"Don't give me that look, she went to do what she said she was gonna do," Piper says. She huffs a little. "I'm really feeling your faith and confidence, by the way. You didn't really think I was gonna kill your fiance?"

"I never told you what really happened, when she took me back to the future," Chris says. He joins her at the island. "And she did, you know. Attack us that one time. Cast a spell on you guys to distract you, threaten your life, et cetera, et cetera."

"Phoebe told me the details, later on," Piper says quietly. She smiles, a little weakly, nudging him with one of her elbows. "All relationships have their problems. You shoulda seen the fights Pheebs and Coop got into when they went through their rough patch. Makes that whole 'trying to drain your powers' thing look practically romantic."

Chris snorts. "I told her you'd see it that way. Literally, I did!"

Piper's smile widens, just a bit. "I think she's been through enough, at the hands of this family," she says, after an extended moment. "I didn't mean to be rude before, I was just…"

"Yeah, I know."

"I just wanted to know some things about - about Chris," Piper says, stumbling. She clenches her jaw, looking intensely into the middle distance. "That's all. She seems...smart. Very poised. I can see why you two get along."

"Side effect of her childhood," Chris says, leaning down against the counter, folding his hands on top of the cold surface. It's easier not to look at her, which is something he hopes he can get over eventually. But maybe that's how it should be - maybe that's what the other Chris deserves, for it to always be a little bit hard. "In our original timeline, her mother lived well into her fifties. She was still alive when we met...she did such a number on Bianca. Phoenixes aren't inherently murderers, you know. Their powers are demonic, but they're still human. The traditions are more harmful than the magic."

"Yeah," Piper says quietly, moving slightly so that her shoulder is touching his bicep.

"That she died so young here is probably a blessing, but...I don't know. We haven't had that much time to talk yet. I don't know all the details. And even still - she still remembers her life from before. She's had her memories since she was eleven, which is a nightmare all on its own."

"Eleven?" Piper repeats, sounding aghast. "Oh my God."

"Yeah." Chris shakes his head. "It's always been like that. Whatever I went through - she always had something much worse, but she'd never...say that, never point it out. She's too proud for self-pity. It always helped keep my head on straight."

"A good fit, then," Piper says softly. "The best partner is one who provides something you lack...balances out your flaws, and brings out the best of your heart."

Chris straightens up again so he can look her in the eye, see the look on her face. "I'm sorry about Leo, Piper. I really, really am."

"I know."

"I don't just mean the way things are now," Chris persists, "but for everything. I know it was my actions that caused your separation, back then. I can't imagine that laid a solid groundwork for the next twenty-odd years."

Piper shakes her head dismissively. "You're just like him. So much like him. Do you know that? That's the real reason why you don't get along, and don't argue with me, you know it's true."

Chris takes a breath, stymied by the bluntness of it.

"He always takes the blame for anything he can," Piper continues, shaking her head. "It used to drive me crazy. So wildly crazy - I'd get so mad I'd stop making sense. Because it was just another way of taking credit, don't you see? The way you'd steamroll over us, using the future as a way to shut us up, manipulate us into doing what you wanted us to do. Oh, sure, it was for the 'Greater Good,' the heroic cause, but." She shakes her head, lips pursed. "It also wasn't. You're more transparent than you think, you know."

Chris finds himself unable to respond, for the first time in a long time that he can remember. Of course she's right. It's hard not to admit it, when it's coming from your mother.

"Don't presume to think that our divorce was because of you," Piper says. She sounds sharp, but also gentle, somehow, as if she knows it's a hard thing for Chris to hear. "We had enough problems long before you came along. We loved each other desperately, but it adds up, you know. Years and years of adding, until it finally just...gets too heavy to carry. And you wake up one day and realize how unhappy you are, how unhappy everyone is, trying to live with all your problems, and the solution is so simple you could cry. And that had nothing to do with you. Get real, Chris."

Chris swallows the lump in his throat, nodding. "Fair enough."

Piper stares at him for a second, then jerks her face away, her expression crumbling. Chris reaches out to touch her arm on instinct, but thinks better of it at the last second, seeing the tense line of her shoulders, the minute trembling in her hands. "God. You're so different. I'd forgotten…"

Chris doesn't say anything, unsure if whatever he could come up with wouldn't make the moment worse. So he just stands there, waiting, until Piper wipes her face, sniffling loudly.

"Grieve later," Piper says, voice tight. She turns back around, gracing him with a horribly painful smile. "I'm sorry. I don't want you to think I didn't miss you - I did. I really did, baby."

"I didn't think that," Chris says quietly. She smiles again, reaching out and squeezing the crook of his elbow. She used to do that all the time, after she found out who he was - it was sort of a compromise gesture, since neither of them were all that comfortable with hugging. Chris always liked to think it was something unique, special to just her and him.

"So did you really want to find Richard, or were you just placating me?" Piper asks. "He's down there all the time, you know. Practically lives there, for his job - he's a counselor now."

"Did he get his magic back?" Chris asks, still puzzled about the whole Richard thing in general. "Didn't he take a power stripping potion? I'm fairly certain I remember that happening."

"He did, but some of them returned, eventually," Piper says, shrugging. "He can cast, brew potions, blink - or, I don't know what you'd call it. It's not blinking exactly, but it's close enough that that's what we call it. He opened up a sort of...therapy practice, for people like his family...and Bianca's, now that I mention it. The ones who need help with...resisting certain things. We're not dating, you know," she finishes abruptly, crossing her arms. "Paige and Phoebe are just…"

"Paige and Phoebe?" Chris asks dryly. "Yeah. It's none of my business, though."

Piper doesn't respond to that past another lazy shrug, flipping her greying hair over one shoulder. "He's been helping me look," she says solemnly, "he knows a lot of people. But we don't have to involve him directly. He'll stay out of the way unless I ask him not to."

Chris shakes his head. "It's your call, Piper."

She bites her lip in thought. "He and Wyatt are close," she says finally. "He's a lot smarter than he used to be. He won't get in the way."

Chris doesn't know how he feels about all of this, especially considering 'he won't get in the way' is downright gushy in Piper-speak. But again - it really is none of his business. Mostly. "Alright. Do you have a way of contacting him?"

Piper raises an eyebrow. "I mean, I could call him."

"You're gonna call the Underworld?" Chris asks skeptically. "Like, on your cell phone, you mean?"

"It's been twenty-four years, kid, everybody's got cell service now," Piper says, rolling her eyes. "Remind me to tell you the story about the Facebook demons. Because that was a whole, like…thing."

"Looking forward to it," Chris says dryly.

Piper smiles faintly, returning to her spot next to him against the counter. "We'll wait until Bianca gets back," she allows. "Hopefully she'll come up with a concrete lead."

"The Power of Three would be useful," Chris says neutrally. "You did tell them you'd call them before."

"They've got enough to worry about right now," Piper says, shaking her head. "Bianca certainly packs a good punch, I'm sure. With her and Richard's help, we might not even need them."

Chris refrains from commenting. None of his business, he reminds himself.

"Can I ask you a question?" Piper says suddenly, flipping her hair again with a flick of her wrist. "No reason not to tell me stuff, remember - you're all caught up with the timeline now."

"Sure," Chris says, smiling despite himself.

"Did Billie raise you?" Chris hesitates, grimacing, but that's apparently enough for her; she nods like she already knew. "I thought so. I didn't realize it back then, obviously. But when I met her, she reminded me so much of you, it was...eerie."

"It's complicated," Chris says. "Phoebe raised me. Billie was just sort of...there."

"They're pretty close here, you know," Piper says. "Our Billie...we'd all drifted apart from her, over the years. That's why we didn't get there in time." She swallows heavily. "But they spend quite a bit of time together now. She babysits the kids...she and Chris were close. Very close." She sighs. "That's how he knew so much about the other timeline. Of course she answered his questions. Of course she did." That last part seems to be directed at herself.

"She's dangerous," Chris says, unable to help himself. "You don't know what...happened, what her allegiances were. She certainly wasn't on my side."

Piper's expression stays neutral. "Well she's on ours now," she says. "Her business practices aside, she's always come through for us. And she doesn't talk about it, but she's been through a lot, obviously."

Chris thinks of Billie the last time he'd seen her, bleeding by his hand, crumpled against a broken bookcase, and feels a sharp pang of doubt. It's another way of taking credit, Piper had said. Arrogance, was the word she didn't say. But she didn't have to.

"I...hadn't seen her in years, at the time that I...went back," Chris says haltingly, struggling to keep the words even. "It was," a betrayal, "hard, for me, when she kept working with Wyatt, despite everything. It was early, still, we didn't know everything that he'd done yet, but…" she should have known, Chris realizes. She should have trusted him.

"She told me once that Phoebe asked her to look out for him," Piper says quietly. She reaches out and squeezes his elbow again. "Maybe it's even more complicated than you think, honey."

"It doesn't matter," Chris says blankly, numbed by the conversation. "It's all undone now; it doesn't matter. The people who died, everyone we lost...it was all undone."

"You weren't undone," Piper says lowly. "Neither was Bianca. Billie. And I don't think you believe the others are gone, either. Your mother…" her voice hitches, "she's not gone. Neither is your Phoebe. Souls are much harder to destroy than that, Chris. Their love is much harder to destroy."

Chris stares at the floor, not trusting himself to speak.

"If my Chris matters...and he does," Piper says intensely, "if his loss is a loss, if your memories are what make you who you are...then they matter too." She moves in closer, her grip firm on his elbow, and leans her forehead against the angle of his shoulder. Another thing she used to do, from time to time, when he'd allow it. "You matter, your life matters. The world you came from, and the people you loved…it all matters."

It's not as if Chris hadn't told himself that a million times - comforted himself with it, long nights in the tiny room in Piper's bar, surrounded by temptations. But it's different hearing it. It always feels more true when it's your mom saying it.

"Anyway, that's all I wanted to say," Piper says, wiping the tears from her cheek as she pulls away. She smiles up at him, soft and kind, and then wipes his cheek too with the back of her hand. "We can talk more about it later."

"I didn't think you'd even want to see me," Chris says, hearing it come out hoarsely. His vision is a little blurry; he must still be crying a little. It's a weird feeling. "I didn't think any of you would want to."

"I can't speak for the kids, because this is gonna just - " Piper chokes a little on the words, "God, I can't even say it. But of course I want you around." She says it so simply, like it's obvious. "You're our Whitelighter, remember? The best one we've ever had, despite everything. We need you."

"Bullshit," Chris says, laughing through the tears. "That's such bullshit, Piper."

"Oh come on, no it's not," Piper says, laughing along with him. "And watch your mouth; I'm still your mother."

"Shut up," Chris tells her, rolling his eyes. She laughs again, like she can't help herself, tears still damp on her face, her fist clenched tightly in the sleeve of his sweater. Grieve later - right. That's the trick - to let it in inch by inch, only a small bit at a time. Only as much as you can deal with.

Plenty of time for it - there's that, at least. He'll take credit for that.


	10. Chapter 10

_A quick note: thank you very much to everyone who has left reviews on this, I really do appreciate it. But I'm going to ask you to do something for me: please stop character bashing the Halliwells in your comments. That's not what this story has ever been about, and the only thing you're accomplishing is making me feel bad. Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy the rest of this story._

* * *

.

* * *

What Chris never told the sisters was that 2003 was not their target date, and it was not the first year that he traveled back to. His original target was 2001, and his original goal was to prevent Prue Halliwell's death, with the working theory that the original Power of Three would be stronger and more equipped to protect Wyatt from corruption, or if that failed, to defeat him.

Obviously, it didn't work. He didn't reveal himself to anyone, but he fucked it up anyway - he hadn't known about Tempus' involvement. The time demon was able to sense his presence, and it was enough to throw everything off: he went straight to the Source with the information, and so he was conveniently nearby when Phoebe and Leo struck their deal. The Source thought he was delusional - injured, paranoid, ranting about a visitor from the future - and killed him immediately after he held up his end of the deal. And this is how it unravels: instead of a weakened time demon, it was the Source's best assassin that went to the Manor that day, and so it was that Prue Halliwell lost her life. And Chris couldn't do a goddamn thing about it - not without exposing himself further. All he'd managed to do was change the time and circumstances of Prue's death - which must have been the first change that Bianca felt: the history books swapping out one demon's name for another.

Once he was back in the past, opening a portal was easy - all he needed was access to the Manor, which was a hell of a lot easier in the early aughts than it was in 2027. He moved forward another few months, to late 2001, after Paige's emergence and the reconstitution of the Charmed Ones, but by that point he had no idea what he was doing, no plan to follow other than "stop it, by any means necessary." He continued networking, trying to solve the mystery on his own, but it was hopeless; he couldn't risk going back to 2027 to see if his efforts were working, and without information on the consequences of his actions, he couldn't act too decisively for fear of making it all worse. Since he couldn't save the original incarnation of the Charmed Ones, he knew he had to save the second one - but preventing Paige's death wasn't a guarantee of success, either, and he knew he couldn't possibly do it from behind the scenes. So he made the decision to reveal himself, to lie, to place himself in the situation directly, and fuck the consequences. It was the only option he had left - and by that point, he knew there was no going back. Anything he did was going to erase his own existence - he just had to hold on long enough to ensure that he fixed the worst of it. Just long enough to be _sure._

He's not sure if he'll ever tell them the whole story. It's not as if he were acting with pure intentions - Prue was, and still is, just a name in a history book to him. He only ever saw her from a distance. But playing God with her life got her killed almost a month earlier than her original death - the one that only Chris and Bianca now remember. Does it still count? Does that original _original_ version of Prue still exist, somewhere among all the other versions, in the afterlife? Do they all float around out there together - dozens of Phoebes and Prues and Paiges and Pipers, commiserating about their shitty, violent deaths, watching the current timeline scroll by like a daytime soap opera?

His own mother, the version of Piper that gave birth to him, died in a car accident. Of all things. It drove Wyatt mad - quite literally speaking. He was absolutely convinced that there was evil involved, some nefarious, car-crashing demon that took her away from them, and that obsession never, ever left him. But it wasn't evil. It was just a stupid fucking car accident. Isn't that something? Chris still can't believe it, after all these years. Anyone who thinks the universe doesn't have a sense of humor just doesn't know it well enough.

Like traveling two decades back in time to save your long-dead aunt and prevent an apocalyptic future, and accidentally running into a time demon who just _happened_ to be tangentially involved. Just a stupid coincidence. How much of history happens like that? Lucky breaks and bad timing. Wars starting and ending, death and birth and falling in love - how much is _really_ fate? Or is fate just a bedtime story magicals tell themselves to explain the madness of the universe?

Of all people, Chris should be the one with the best ability to answer that question, and he has absolutely no clue. And doesn't that tell you something?

* * *

Bianca keeps her word and returns within the hour, looking harried and smelling like clove cigarettes and vodka sulfur - the Underworld bar scene's specialty. A brief argument occurs when Piper realizes (belatedly) that P.J.'s spell won't work on her, which Bianca cuts off with an eye roll and a succinct word: "Mayflower."

"It's her, Piper," Chris says immediately.

"Oh, what is _that_?" Piper asks in disgust, "you two have secret _passwords?_ What exactly was this 'Resistance' you keep mentioning - a 60's spy movie?"

"It's not a password, it was the name of our cat," Chris tells her, rolling his eyes. Piper gapes at him. "What?"

"You had a pet cat," Piper says slowly, "in your apocalyptic original timeline?"

"Well yeah," Chris says, "we weren't living in underground bunkers or anything. People had, you know, jobs and lives and everything. And pets."

"And so you named yours 'Mayflower'?" Piper interrupts, looking suspiciously amused.

"Hey, don't look at me, I'm not the one who was raised with a fetish for colonial America," Chris says pointedly. Bianca smacks his arm, but her mouth is twitching. "You should've heard the names I rejected - "

"Okay, that's quite enough," Bianca interrupts. "Mayflower was our _familiar,_ Chris, you never did treat him with the proper respect."

"Because he was a total bitch," Chris replies. He turns to Piper. "Peed on my shoes _constantly._ "

"You deserved it," Bianca says easily, wrinkling her nose at him. Chris makes a face back at her, quickly wiping it away and arranging his expression back to seriousness when he catches Piper looking.

"Okay," she says, shaking her head and turning to Bianca, "I do like you. I just decided."

"Thanks," Bianca says, nonplussed. "You're gonna like me more when you hear what I found out at Bune's."

"What?" Chris asks, not having to work at seriousness now. Piper's shoulders straighten too, in anticipation.

"Well, Wyatt's alive and free, as of about six hours ago," Bianca says. "Somebody spotted him at the bar and recognized who he was - he wasn't using a glamour, for some reason - "

Piper groans out loud, rolling her eyes. "Reckless, stubborn - never mind," she says, stopping short when she realizes they're both looking at her, "keep going."

"Well, he got into it with one of the regulars there," Bianca says, eyeing Piper carefully. "A warlock named...Hathor, Hawthorne, something like that. Who cares - he's dead. Wyatt vanquished him right there in front of everybody. It was quite the scene, apparently."

"You don't mean Hackthorn?" Piper asks.

"Yeah, that's it - Hackthorn."

Piper curses. "He's a - well, not an ally, exactly. But Paige knows him - she bribed him for information a lot. They had a sort of agreement."

"Then Wyatt probably went to him for information too," Chris says. "Something must have gone wrong."

"Obviously," Bianca says dryly. "I've never heard the name before, so if I've met him we weren't formally introduced. But everyone I talked to said they were arguing about me, loudly. After the fight Wyatt orbed out - causing another big scene, I might add. Poor Bune's gonna have a lot of PR work to do after this - a Whitelighter in his seediest bar." She shakes her head in faux sympathy, clicking her tongue.

"Okay, so this is good news, right? Mimi might not have him after all?" Piper asks. "If he's been ignoring my calls this whole time - ooh, he's so _dead._ "

"Well, this is the part that's gonna make you like me," Bianca replies. "So they were arguing about me, right? Everyone heard it. I've got a friend who works at the bar - this is the girl who told me all of this. She's the one I told you about, Chris, that I lived with for a few years in New York?" Chris nods. "She's half-nephilim," she explains to Piper, "long story, but she isn't evil - at least not in the traditional sense - but she can't lie, either, because of the angel blood. Her word is good."

"Since when can't angels lie?" Piper asks with a snort. "I'm standing right next to one who can do it really annoyingly well, thank you very much."

"Whitelighters aren't angels," Chris tells her. "There are Whitelighters, and then there are _angels._ Angel angels." Piper makes a face at him. "What? Don't give me that look, it's true. They can't tell falsehoods - it's physically impossible. The nephilim are their children, and they can't do it either."

"How is it that I have finally caught up to you in the timeline and you're _still_ lecturing me about weird magic crap," Piper says rolling her eyes. Chris shoots her a dirty look.

Bianca snorts, drawing both their attentions. "Sorry," she says, biting her lip. "I just - I think I just realized where Chris gets his...well, _everything_ from."

"Shut up," Chris says, shoving her shoulder. Bianca snorts again. "Your point?"

" _Anyway,_ " Bianca says, shaking her head, "so she follows Wyatt a little, right? As a favor to me. And she catches sight of him with a young girl - brown hair, Mortal-style clothes. And Wyatt keeps calling her 'P.J.'" Bianca raises her eyebrows. "Which...I'm assuming you've kept a close eye on the real one, so…"

"No, we definitely have the real P.J.," Piper says, her brow furrowed. "That's smart, though. Impersonating her - no wonder he hasn't looked at their notebook. Why would he need to, when he thinks she's there with him?"

"Was there anything to indicate their plan, a location?" Chris asks.

"Ximena told me they mentioned Magic School," Bianca says. "Which makes sense. It's a good strategic location, and since she's pretending to be P.J., it wouldn't arouse Wyatt's suspicions too quickly, like some hovel in the Underworld would."

"Is it not in operation anymore?" Chris asks. "I thought there were protections on it to prevent evil from entering."

"There are," Piper says, "but they can be corrupted. It's happened a few times by now." She shakes her head. "It's still in operation, technically speaking, but there's no Headmaster currently. Leo did it for awhile, but he stepped down about six years ago when his Elder duties got to be too much. They haven't found anyone willing to do it since."

"Well, shit, that's depressing," Chris says.

"Willing and capable, I should say," Piper corrects, waving one hand. "Okay, so assuming they're there, and assuming Wyatt is along for the ride under his own… _relative_ free will, then who knows what big conspiracy theory she's spun for him. No matter how much he trusts P.J., he's still a grown man. There's no way he would go along with something like this without contacting us, unless he had some sort of proof that this was an extreme situation of some kind."

"Max Shaw," Bianca says suddenly, turning to Chris. "Obviously the idea is to make me the bad guy. But she's been impersonating another Phoenix, too. And Wyatt still thinks you're M.I.A., Chris."

"She's made him think I'm being held captive or something, probably," Chris reasons. "And if he gets in touch with any of the family, I'll be killed or injured."

Piper sighs sadly. "Yeah," she says, "yeah, something like that would do it."

"It's a risky plan though, she knows she can't keep it up for long," Bianca says. "She knows it won't hold up under a confrontation."

Chris grimaces. "You're sure he wasn't…"

"Positive," says Bianca firmly.

"Then whatever her plan is, she's going to be enacting it soon," Piper says. She firms her jaw. "So we move now. Paige will have a vanquishing potion ready by now, and Richard's been waiting for my call. They'll both be ready."

"What about," Chris winces as he says it, "Leo? Wouldn't he be - "

"Let's just say that bringing him into the situation isn't going to make Wyatt _less_ confrontational," Piper says firmly. "I'll explain later."

"Noted," Chris says neutrally.

"Whatever happens," Piper says firmly, with the every ounce of matriarchal authority she's capable of, "thank you, both of you, for all that you've done so far. I know none of this was your choice. Whatever the others might say, I know none of this was your fault. You especially, Bianca." Piper holds out her hand for a handshake, which Bianca accepts with visible surprise. "I'm sorry, for whatever it's worth. And thank you."

"There's no need for apologies," Bianca says slowly. She shoots a quick glare at Chris, a silent promise of severe consequences should he ever dare to make fun of her for what she's about to say: "I'm already his wife in all the ways that matter, madam. It's not even a question."

"Good." Piper pauses, smiling thinly. After a second, it falls. "Wait - did you just call me _'madam'_?"

"I thought it was better than 'ma'am,'" Bianca explains wincing. "I'm sorry; I was raised by two vodun witches from Georgia; I can't help it."

Piper sighs, her mouth twitching. "'Madam,'" she says, bemusedly, glancing at Chris. "I can live with it. You ready, kiddo?"

"Oh, very funny," Chris tells her. Piper breaks face, smirking. "She used to say that to her stomach when she was pregnant with me," he explains to Bianca. "Which is an _extremely_ surreal sentence. Yes, _yes,_ I'm fucking ready, let's go kill a shapeshifter."

"Right on," Bianca says. "Just - one thing - who the fuck is Richard again?"

"Piper's not-boyfriend," Chris explains.

"Ah," says Bianca.

"Oh my God he's not - ! Never mind." Piper huffs. "We're gonna need so much counseling after this is over."

* * *

Richard Montana was a footnote in Chris' life in 2003, but he always seemed decent enough. A bit of an annoying tool, sure, and a pain in the ass, but most male witches are. Himself included.

This version has gone completely grey, and he looks Chris in the eye, and carefully does not greet Piper at all, which Chris appreciates. "Chris Perry," he says, with a firm handshake, "damn, man. Never thought I'd ever see you again."

"Been a minute," Chris replies, eyeing Paige, who stares back at him, unapologetic, her eyes wide and innocent. "Heard you're back in the business - Piper said you have some kind of counseling firm…?"

"Oh, _Montana,_ " Bianca says, in sudden realization. "No shit, you're the demon shrink?" Paige snorts loudly, then covers her mouth with one hand.

"That's one way of putting it," Richard says wryly. He looks over at Piper, who is very conspicuously not making eye contact with anybody. "We can catch up later, though. Paige filled me in."

"Did she," Chris says neutrally. Piper kicks his ankle - _hard._

Paige narrows her eyes at the entire room. "One all-purpose vanquishing potion for everyone, here we go," she says, holding out a cloth bag full of potion vials. Richard reaches out and takes one, passing the bag to Piper, who is still looking everywhere _but_ people's actual faces. "Kind of tricky to whip one up that wouldn't hurt Little Miss Demonic Nikita over here, but as always, I shined under pressure." Paige shoots Bianca a smarmy smile. "You're welcome."

Bianca raises an eyebrow at Chris. "Ah. I see what you meant, now."

" _Hey_ ," Paige says. Chris sighs, shooting Bianca an unimpressed look. She looks back at him, unrepentant.

"Alright," Piper cuts in, before it begins. "Enough, we're short on time, people. Pheebs is with the kids?"

"Safe and sound Up There," Paige says.

"I won't be much help if things get dicey," Richard says quietly. "My powers are passive now."

"But you have better magical senses than any of us combined," Piper replies, equally grave. She glances at Chris and Bianca. "He might be able to...reach her. Whoever she is."

Chris looks over at Bianca, who looks as skeptical as he feels. _That's_ the real reason she wanted him along? "You want to _reason_ with her?"

"If she's got a knife to my son's throat, then yes," Piper says. "Metaphorical or not."

Chris looks at Bianca again, who has arranged her face to neutrality again. "You're the boss," she says simply.

The room falls quiet, as if humbled by such a plainspoken truth. Piper nods, her shoulders straightening. "Right. We orb in together. Paige, you got the juice?"

"Do I have the juice," Paige mutters, rolling her eyes. "Cozy up, folks. Let's rumble."

One by one, they grab each other's arms and hands, forming a loose circle around Paige and Piper: nothing new there. Chris glances at Bianca, who blinks slowly back at him, stone-faced as she always is, right before some action. Richard is much the same - wary lines around his mouth, his brow furrowed, and he keeps looking over at the sisters, concern in his gaze.

"Wait," Piper says suddenly, "if we get separated, if somebody gets hurt - "

"Back to the Manor," Paige says, leaving no room for argument. "I set up an alarm; Leo will know right away if somebody orbs or shimmers in. He'll be ready."

"I'm not - " Piper starts, but Richard interrupts, gently: "we're not leaving without Wyatt. Don't worry."

Out of the corner of his eye, Chris sees Bianca raise her eyebrows slightly. Paige smiles, looking over at Chris briefly, a sort of smug look on her face. Like she knows something he doesn't - which frankly, considering the situation, isn't hard to do. Chris rolls his eyes at her; she really hasn't changed a bit.

"Everyone ready now?" Paige asks. When nobody replies, she nods, and reaches over to take Chris' wrist, completing the circle. "Here we go. Brace yourselves."

Chris catches one last glimpse of Bianca, firming her shoulders, before the world dissolves into blue light. And that's the very last thing he remembers of the following seventy-two hours.

* * *

 _Chris wouldn't call his Aunt Pheebs nice, exactly, but she is kind. Kind how she saves innocents all the time, of course, but kind also in that she's always going out of her way for people, even when she doesn't like them. Like for instance, the neighbors they had at their house in Houston, who were always throwing loud parties and stuff, and getting in the way when demons attacked. Aunt Pheebs still made a point of sending them food when one of the people who lived there got sick, and she always stopped to talk to the two younger girls who lived there, even if they were kind of bitchy and always laughed at her, muttering snide comments beneath their breath._

 _She's always doing things like that. Stopping to talk to someone handing out those Salvation Army pamphlets on the street about how magic is evil, witches are all agents of the devil, yadda yadda yadda. Being polite to old men who leer at her and Billie, holding hands in the grocery store. She scolds Chris for making fun of mortals - one time even grounded him, for saying something vulgar about a girl in his class who said during a group discussion that witches were God's punishment for humanity's sin._

 _"They're afraid of us," she'll explain, rarely patient in her lessons except for when Chris truly doesn't understand. "And they're right to be. Look at what's happening to the world, baby. Look at how many people are hurt every day. It's not their job to see the nuance - it's ours, to be compassionate."_

 _"But that's not_ our _fault," Chris will say, and all she does then is hug him, and tell him that it doesn't matter. Chris isn't sure if he agrees with her there, but the older he gets, the more he understands what she's really trying to say._

 _Billie's not nice or kind. She's sarcastic and kind of mean, snappy and irritable even on good days. The only person who can make her smile is Aunt Pheebs, and Chris stops seeing even that after the attack that finally drives them out of Texas, when a demon hit her with some kind of pain spell that left her permanently afflicted with aches and muscle spasms that no pill or potion can ease, no matter how much research Aunt Pheebs does. She and Chris don't get along very well, but she's the one who takes him school shopping and makes sure he always has clothes that fit. She leaves books in his room when he's not there, and they always seem to be ones he's never read before, perfectly suited to whatever he's interested in at the time. She tells loud stories about his mother and his other aunt, not talking to him directly, but Chris knows it's for his benefit, since Aunt Pheebs_ never _talks about Piper and Paige. One time she even gave him pictures of the mausoleum where they're all buried - all three of them, Piper and Paige and Prue. There were empty spots on the wall, spaces for Phoebe and maybe him and Wyatt too, one day. If it's still around, whenever they die._

 _Every year on Christmas Day, his dad and his older brother come for dinner. Chris vaguely remembers them being around a lot more, when he was little, but by now they're like strangers: dazed looking men in golden robes, comically out of place in their slapdash, Goodwill kitchen, making faces at Billie's cooking and asking Chris weird questions. How's school? How are your grades? What spells have you been working on? Chris never knows how to answer, so he usually doesn't say anything, and Aunt Pheebs always gets mad at him, wants him to try harder. "He's your_ brother," _she'll say, like that means something. Like blood is more important than anything else._

 _On his eighteenth birthday, a year before she dies, Aunt Pheebs gives him a check for ten thousand dollars and the remaining pages from the Halliwell Book of Shadows, all that she was able to salvage from the Manor before it was invaded by the demons that still reside there today - an impenetrable, occupying force, commanded by the mysterious Source (or...something else, whatever_ he _is) who's commanding all the chess pieces nowadays. It's been years since they were forced out of San Francisco, and Aunt Pheebs still hasn't been able to figure out who it is - just that they're powerful, and terrifying enough to bend half the Underworld to their will. Chris and his friends are working on a plan to draw him out, which he hasn't told Aunt Pheebs and Billie about yet, afraid that they'll try to stop him, tell him it's too dangerous._

 _"Ripped out like this," Aunt Pheebs explains, "separated from the Book itself, and from the Nexus beneath the Manor...they're not going to carry much power. But it's the knowledge that's equally important." She flips through the tattered pages carefully, reverently. It's the most random collection of spells - household charms for protection, vanquishing potions for demons long dead, an entry by some random ancestor on poltergeists that's mostly incorrect. But Chris feels as if he's being given the Dead Sea Scrolls, presented to him personally by Jesus Christ himself. Or Herself, as the case may be. "One day, you're going to reunite them with the rest of it, and restore the Book to its rightful state. I Saw it in a vision, almost ten years ago."_

 _"Did you See any tips?" Chris tries to joke. "Hints?"_

 _Aunt Pheebs just shakes her head. "It doesn't work like that," she says. "Not anymore. You know, when I was young, I used to see...movie scenes. Like a little play in my head, of something that was about to happen? Isn't that nuts?" She laughs. "It's the gift and the curse of having the power I have: the stronger you grow, the more you See, and the harder it is to understand."_

 _"So what else have you Seen about me?" Chris asks, always ready to issue a challenge. Of all the lessons they've taught him, it's that one that will keep him going, through even the darkest of times: always keep pushing. When you think it's enough - it isn't. Just push harder. Offending people is the least of your concerns._

 _"I've Seen," Aunt Pheebs says, cradling his face in her wrinkled, calloused hands, "a good woman, who will come into your life at the exact moment that you need her. Out of nowhere - like a lightning strike. She'll follow you into Hell itself, and she'll take good care of you, if you let her."_

 _Chris wrinkles his nose. "Sounds too good to be true."_

 _"Most love stories are," Aunt Pheebs says, smiling. Her eyes sparkle, big and wet. "I've Seen...hard roads ahead, pain and sacrifice. Anger, loss…"_

 _"Typical," Chris mutters._

 _"Nothing you can't handle," Aunt Pheebs counters. "You're going to fix it, you know. Do what we couldn't."_

 _Chris feels breathless, the weight of her hope settling heavily on his shoulders. But it's always been there, unspoken. He's been waiting for it for years; it's almost a relief to finally take possession of it - the responsibility he's been silently dreading and wanting, all his life. "I thought your visions were hard to understand. This all seems pretty specific to me."_

 _"I don't need to be psychic to know that you're ready," Aunt Pheebs says, letting her hands fall away, folding them in her lap. She looks out over the Bay, the wind ruffling the lapels of her coat. Up here, tucked away on the highest beam of the Golden Gate, is the closest they can come to the city where she was raised, and the house she left her heart in. Chris takes her here as often as he possibly can. "You're stronger than we were, in a lot of ways. Different, and still young, sure - but still stronger. Better prepared, that's for sure."_

 _"Thanks to you," Chris says, nudging her shoulder. She smiles, faintly, and Chris wonders if now is the time to tell her about his plans. About May the Whitelighter, and the Bodewell brothers, and the half-demon girl who betrayed her father to save an innocent. Friends who want to help - friends with plans. But she looks so peaceful, he almost doesn't want to ruin it with talk about their grim future. "So after I save the world," he jokes, "and I meet my lightning strike girl, and we move to the suburbs and have a bunch of babies - you and Billie will finally retire, right? Move into our attic and be the grumpy, witchy grandmas you were destined to be?"_

 _Aunt Pheebs smiles at him, tremulously, and for the first time in years, starts to cry. "That sounds wonderful," she says haltingly. Chris reaches out and wraps his arm around her shoulder, unsure of what else to do. Frightened a little, by her tears._

 _"I'm sorry," Chris says unsurely. "I didn't mean to make you upset. Ruin the moment, and all that - "_

 _"No," Aunt Pheebs says, furiously wiping at her cheeks. "I'm the one who's sorry, baby. I'm...just so, so sorry."_

 _Years later (or years before, depending on your perspective), Chris will sit in this exact spot and berate himself for all the things he didn't tell her. The questions he never asked and the conversations they never had. But in that moment, high above the ground, sitting there in silence, it was hard not to feel that she already knew all of it. As if he could come up with anything to say that she didn't already sense, and feel, and understand, and forgive him for._

 _"You know I love you," Aunt Pheebs says, grabbing his chin and kissing his cheek fiercely. "I'm so proud of you and I'll love you forever, in every world, in every dimension. Every single universe. Don't you dare ever forget. Don't you dare think I'm gone, Chris."_

 _"I know," Chris says warily, an eerie feeling prickling at his neck. "I know, Aunt Pheebs, of course - "_

 _"Time to wake up, baby," she says, and slaps his forehead with her palm. And Chris chokes, on nothing, and pitches backward, his stomach roiling and his head spinning, and then, and -_

* * *

"Wake _up,_ " comes the voice again, thinner and reedier than Chris has ever heard it, but intimately familiar all the same. A hand hits his forehead, slapping his skin absurdly. Chris bats the hand away, half-awake, his eyes peeling open to shadowy darkness. "Come _on_ man, say something, lemme know you're okay, c'mon, Chris - "

"Shut up please," Chris mumbles, his head feeling like it's been split in two. The shadows in the room make his head spin, and he slams his eyes shut again, swallowing the rush of saliva, trying to will the nausea away.

"Chris?" The voice sounds intensely relieved. "Oh thank God, man. Thank God. I knew you weren't dead but I was afraid - "

"Shut _up,_ please," Chris says again, and the voice falls obediently silent. He groans softly, pressing the flat of his hand against the side of his face. He's bleeding, somewhere around his temple. The ground below him is hard tile, and his shoes and socks are gone. There's a throbbing pain in his right leg, and something is impeding his breathing, thick congestion making each one painful. Internal injury of some kind - broken rib? Chris touches his own rib cage, testing, but it feels normal - must be something else, then.

He opens his eyes again, slowly, assessing: shadows on a high ceiling, from torches or a fire. Magic School - definitely. But the room is cold, and there's another person there, breathing loudly and rattling something - restraints of some kind, it must be. Chris himself isn't tied up, but he can make out the dim shape of a crystal, lying a few feet away from his head - a crystal cage. He's been tortured, obviously. There are heavy cuffs around his wrists, and Chris can already tell what they are: magic null cuffs. He touches one with his hand, his heart growing cold. There aren't many people in either world who would be able to build a pair of these. He thinks of Bianca, and the panic sends his heart rate tripling.

"Chris?" Tentative, and still familiar. Chris turns his head, already knowing what he'll see. "Are you…"

"I'm fine," Chris interrupts, gingerly sitting up. His brother is just outside the boundary of the crystals, his wrists encased by the same null cuffs, face stricken. Chris stares at him for a second, thrown by how _young_ he looks. "Are you - what's - "

"I'm fine too," Wyatt says quickly, tossing an anxious glance over his shoulder. "What do you remember? Quick, before he comes back."

"Before who comes back?" Chris asks, frowning. "Nothing, I don't…" he trails off uncertainly. There's a spike of something - a flash of memory, someone yelling in anger… "Where are the others?" he demands. "Where's Bianca?"

Wyatt's face darkens. "So nothing," he says. "Damn it. I'd hoped…" his face creases in concentration, and he reaches carefully beyond the boundaries of Chris' crystal cage, clearly aiming to knock one of the crystals out of place. The magic null cuffs allow him to breach the boundary, but the second he gets close to the crystal itself, a forcefield knocks his hand back stubbornly. "Damn it!"

"That's not going to work," Chris tells him, sighing. "These aren't normal Pyrites. Quartz, probably, maybe even diamond. And see the etchings?" He gestures to the crystal closest to Wyatt. "We can't break it by force. There's probably a password, or a spell."

Wyatt sighs, tossing another glance over his shoulder. "Explains why he left me here on my own," he says, falling to his knees outside the boundary. "Smug asshole."

"Who?" Chris demands, mirroring him and raising up to a sitting position. His head swims, and he grips the side of his temple, grimacing. "What the hell is going on, where are the others?"

"I don't know," Wyatt says heavily, swallowing. He glances up at the high ceiling, his face shadowed in the torchlight. "We're at Magic School. He brought me here - you know he's a shapeshifter, right?"

"And you know it too, now?" Chris asks. "Obviously."

"He was posing as…" Wyatt winces. "Bianca. That's how he got me here. I was looking for you…" he trails off, looking shamefaced. "Anyway, I don't know who he really is. And I only saw Mom and Aunt Paige for a second before they got orbed out again. He's set up some kind of...ward, I don't know what the hell it is, but it bounces anyone back that he doesn't want in here. He let you and Bianca - the real Bianca - in, and Richard too, but it knocked you guys out."

"Where are they now?" Chris demands. "Where's - "

"I don't know," Wyatt interrupts gently, reminding Chris strongly of Leo at his most compassionate. "I don't know, man. He's had me in these," Wyatt holds up his hands, showing off the cuffs, "since we got here, and he can orb me around wherever he wants. I only saw them for a second. And he's had you in this thing for...awhile now. I've lost track of how long it's been." He gestures at his feet, which are chained together crudely with what has to be another magical chain of some kind, judging by its eerie glow. "I haven't exactly been able to get the upper hand yet."

"Who is it?" Chris asks. Wyatt blinks at him. "I mean, who is he posing as?"

"It's," Wyatt says, his face collapsing weirdly. He looks even younger than before, his face scared and pale white. "I don't - I - "

Chris shakes his head, holding out one hand. "Okay. It's okay, Wyatt." He doesn't need to hear it out loud to know.

"I didn't mean it," Wyatt says, rubbing his forehead, shoulders slumped. "Chris, I swear. I didn't mean to - "

"It's not your fault," Chris says, eyes already on the cavernous doorway. The shadows are changing, flickering differently, and he can sense the presence there before they even come fully into the room. "Listen to me, it's not your fault. Whatever happens, remember that."

"Chris," Wyatt says, gulping. The rest of his sentence falls away as he looks over at the doorway, blanching in fear. Chris looks over too, his heart freezing once again. It's a face he told himself he'd never have to see again, not after the last time, but - deep down, somehow, he knew that wasn't true. It always comes down to this, doesn't it. Wyatt, his eyes dark and cold, standing in a doorway, smirking. His worst nightmare come to life, over and over and over. Chris should have known.

"How sweet," the other Wyatt says, sneering at the both of them. The torch he carries floats out of his hand and settles neatly into a wall hanging, lighting up the dim space a bit better, enough for Chris to see the edges of the walls. "Do you want me to give you lovebirds a moment alone? I can dim the lights again, if you prefer."

Wyatt - the good Wyatt - makes a muffled sound of outrage. Chris doesn't look over. "Nice costume," he snaps instead. "Very accurate. You wanna show me your real face now, or are you having too much fun dressing up like your dead boss?"

"Christopher," Wyatt says, making a mock face of hurt, "I'm hurt, little brother. Aren't you even a little happy to see me?"

Chris rolls his eyes in exasperation. "Jesus Christ," he mutters, loud enough for both Wyatts to hear. "It's the same routine with you people every time, isn't it? You can't just murder me like a grown up, you have to put everyone through a bunch of melodrama first."

"I'm not sure what you mean by 'you people,' but I want to remind you that this is a _safe space,_ Christopher," the other Wyatt says. "Bigotry isn't welcome in my home. Isn't that right, Wy?"

The younger Wyatt just shoots him a venomous glare. "Stuff if it up your ass, you self-inflated prick," he says.

Other Wyatt laughs. "What a mouth! We all know who he got that from, don't we." He stares the good Wyatt down, eyes narrowing, and makes a false lunge, causing the younger man to flinch, lurching backwards and falling onto one of his hands. Other Wyatt laughs again, meanly. "The famous Halliwell wit, alive and well even in this goody-two-shoes universe. Some things are universal constants, aren't they?"

Chris scoffs, studying him. He's got the look down pretty well - long, curly cherub hair, dark circled eyes, black robes - but his Wyatt would never carry himself like this person is, his weight unbalanced, leaning more heavily on his right leg. He keeps propping his hands against his hips, too, which looks ridiculous on this Wyatt's muscled, beefed-up physique (another propaganda tactic - two seconds at hand-to-hand with him, and you'd figure out that it was mostly potions and glamour spells). Whoever this shapeshifter is, it's probably a woman. Someone who knew Wyatt well enough to imitate him, but not down to the details. Someone not experienced enough to know the differences in the body language of women and men.

"You're not Maya, are you?" Chris guesses. The Other Wyatt eyes him, a cruel smirk on his lips. "No. Maya wouldn't be stupid enough to bring me over instead of killing me. You must be new." Chris smirks. "A low leveller? One of the fan clubs, maybe? Some pretty piece of ass he kept around for kicks?"

"Careful, little brother," says the shapeshifter, still clinging to the fiction. "What would your fiance think of that sort of talk?"

Chris snorts. "Full access to the inner circle got you some delusions of grandeur, huh? You know, just because he fucked you doesn't mean he trusted you - "

His sentence cuts off abruptly as the crystal cage ignites, sending him spiraling into a torrent of sudden, full-body pain. Chris dimly hears the good Wyatt yelling angrily, and as the electricity finally relents, he can hear the shapeshifter laughing, too, the sound echoing off the high, distant walls.

"You jackass," the good Wyatt is still spitting, once Chris comes fully back to himself, panting in a sweaty heap on the ground. "You evil, arrogant - "

" _Evil, arrogant, jerkhead!_ " taunts the shapeshifter, imitating Wyatt in a high-pitched voice. "Keep your mouth shut, kid, or it's your turn in the hot seat." He circles the cage, his boots clicking loudly on the floor, and bends down to peer obnoxiously at Chris' face, pressed limply against the tile. "Get it, little brother? _Hot_ seat? Because I'm electrocuting you." He reaches across the boundary and slaps Chris' face, laughing sharply. "It's funny."

"Fuck you," Chris spits, jerking his face away. His whole body is twitching with the aftershocks; no wonder he's lost the last few days of memory. It's a miracle he's not dead by now.

"What's your play?" the other Wyatt demands. He sounds angry, with an undercurrent of fear, but his voice is measured and strong. Attaboy, Chris thinks dimly. "What the hell do you want? Because if it's just to torture us for all eternity, I've got news for you, pal - Magic School isn't exactly the safest place to hide us away from, oh I dunno, _the Charmed Ones?_ Literally the most powerful witches of all time? Heard of 'em?"

"Heard of them?" says the shapeshifter, incredulous. Still bent over Chris, he chuckles, pitching his voice quietly, as if they're sharing a secret. "Can you believe this guy? Have I heard of them."

"Leave him alone," Chris says, struggling to turn over, get off his back and into a more defensible position. His entire body aches. "Just - leave him out of this. I'm the one you want, right?"

The shapeshifter peers at him through Wyatt's eyes, his head cocked. Behind him, the real Wyatt is watching them tensely, crippled by the restraints, his face intent with anger and worry.

Chris laughs, trying to keep the tremor out of his voice. "Such a cliche. This _is_ the play, isn't it? This is the endgame. Wyatt was just bait - it's me you wanted." Clarity comes, as it often does, with a healthy swell of pain. "Something went wrong, didn't it? You weren't expecting the poison to work so quickly, or maybe - you got called away. Something. I woke up too fast, and by the time you went back to get me, the family was there."

The shapeshifter rolls his eyes. "Are you quite finished?"

Chris laughs, incredulous. "That's rich. Very rich. How long did you work on this plan? How many years? This big elaborate plot and for what? So you can torture me? Look me in the eye when you kill me?" He laughs again, shaking his head. "You're pathetic. All that work, just for some fucking _melodrama._ "

"Well, you're so fun to torture," the shapeshifter says, with a shrug. "You do kind of ask for it. I know, I know, that's problematic to say, but it is true sometimes, isn't it? Some of us just...bring it on ourselves." He waves his hand slowly over the nearest crystal, sending another low-level wave of pain through Chris' body, forcing him to fall to the ground once again. "You start to like it after a while, too. Crave it. Your girl certainly did. She begged for his favor, by the end, you should've heard her. Cried whenever he stopped. Whined like a dog."

Chris grits his teeth, his vision bleeding into red at the edges. "Shut the fuck up."

"Are you thinking about what I might have done to her?" he continues, smiling with all his teeth. Chris clenches his fists against another pulse of electricity, biting down the scream, grinding his forehead against the floor as his body seizes. "Where she might be now? I was there, you know. Four whole weeks, all day, every day. He was _obsessed._ " The voice trails off, as does the pain, and Chris gasps for air, dimly hearing Wyatt's angry utterations, a few feet away. "Not with her - no, she was just another demon, one in a million. But with _you._ " Hatred drips from every syllable. "Always you, Christopher, little brother, the lost lamb. Every plan was about bringing you into the fold, forcing you to see reason. He gave you chance, after _chance,_ after _chance._ " With each emphasized word, the shapeshifter pulses the crystals again, lighting up Chris' veins in bursts of impossible pain. "And what did you do? You _erased him._ "

"You're a psycho," Chris mumbles, spitting out blood from where he's bitten through his lip. "He was evil. You're both fucking evil. Rot beneath the world's shoes."

"He _loved you!_ " Another shock, longer this time. The ceiling swims, the sounds of the two Wyatts' matching cries, opposite in intent, swimming in and out like a radio losing clarity.

Chris grits his teeth harder and pushes through. He can almost feel the wind on his face, smell Aunt Pheebs' shampoo: _don't you dare, Chris. Don't you dare._

There's a ringing in his ears that he slowly realizes is actually just the shapeshifter's laughter, higher pitched than Wyatt's ever was. Chris blinks his eyes open, his body trembling violently, and realizes the electricity has stopped again. The good Wyatt is clutching his ankle through the crystal boundary, his face creased in distress.

" _So_ sweet," the shapeshifter says, laughing again. A woman's laugh. "Gonna be a long night, boys, better settle in. Everyone comfortable? Need some water, snacks?"

"Who the hell are you?" Wyatt spits. "What do you want from my family?"

"I _am_ your family, kid," is the reply he gets. The shapeshifter rises to their feet, hair lengthening into long, blond waves that look ridiculous on the other Wyatt's body. "Or I might as well be. I certainly deserved it more than him." She spits the last word, kicking sharply at the crystal and sending another vicious spike through Chris' body. Wyatt jerks in tandem, absorbing some of the shock, judging by the grimace on his face. Chris quickly kicks his hands away.

"Don't bother, Wyatt," Chris slurs. "Just don't. She's not worth it." He glares up her. "It doesn't matter who she is. Nobody's going to remember. Not a single fucking person."

The shapeshifter graces him with a cold look, as soulless as Chris has ever seen - demon, warlock or brother alike. "Poor little brother," she says, clicking her tongue. Her face elongates, turning Wyatt's face into absurdity. Something halfway between his brother and something else. "Your memory acting up again? My name," she forms a dark ball of energy between her hands, spitting and crackling with Darklighter energy, "is _Wyatt Halliwell_."

Chris laughs at her, as meanly as he can manage. "You can try," he says. "Go on, give it your best shot."

She smiles darkly. "Well, if you insist," she says.


	11. Chapter 11

_Chris has only been Up There a few times in his life - here and there, birthdays and holidays, when his father couldn't be bothered to come down to Earth. Walking through the mist, Chris feels like he can't breathe. The sky is a swirling mass of pale blue and pearl, and the irises of Wyatt's eyes are a pale, cold gold._

 _"Try some of this stuff, it's really amazing," Wyatt says earnestly, pressing his goblet into Chris' hands. Chris fumbles it, almost dropping it, his hands frozen in the cloudy air. "Real ambrosia, the stuff the Gods used to drink. The real Gods, anyway - you know, Horus and Zeus and all those guys. Can you imagine?"_

 _Chris nods, smiling tightly, and pretends to drink. The shining liquid inside the cup nearly burns his lips. "Wow."_

 _"Awesome, right?" Wyatt leans back into the throne chair, sighing in contentment. "They kept some locked away for ceremonies. You know they had ceremonies for everything? Literally. Sunrises, sunsets, every single meal...waking up, going to sleep. Every second of every day had a ceremony you could do. My favorite was the Deep Breath After Physical Exercise ceremony - it had a little dance that you did. Dad's was Contemplating Beauty While Gardening." Wyatt smiles in fond memory, his eyes still glittering eerily. "We used to make fun of them, but in a nice way, you know? It was fun."_

 _Chris thinks about handing the goblet back, but his legs feel frozen. He sets it down carefully on the nearest surface instead - a bloody, marble edged table, still laden with half-empty plates from the forgotten feast. "Sounds nice. An...inside joke."_

 _Wyatt sighs. At his feet lies the Principality, Sandra the Kind, a being Chris has only seen from afar before. Her eyes are wide open and blank, and there's a gaping hole in her chest. The heat from the energy ball had cauterized the wound, so there's little blood, and the edges are still smoking. She looks as if she might sit up and walk away at any moment. "Sure, it was nice. We had a lot of inside jokes like that. You had to, you know. Growing up with these guys." Wyatt nudges Sandra's shoulder with the edge of his heel, grinning fondly. Her body flops down the marble steps, her head and limbs rolling sickly downwards, like a puppet cut from its strings. Chris swallows his nausea, forcing himself not to flinch. "No sense of humor! And so self-important. Everything was the end of the world, you know what I mean?"_

 _Chris feels sick to his stomach. Every vein in his body is frozen, his blood has been replaced with blue ice. "Yeah. Must have been hard."_

 _"It was. It really was." Wyatt smiles sweetly at Chris, his eyes still deep gold, shining brightly against the deep red blood splattered across his face. "Man, I'm so glad you're here. I kept bugging Dad for ages to let you come visit, you know, but he never wanted you up here. He wanted to keep us apart." Wyatt tilts his head. "Aunt Pheebs was the same - all this crap about 'it's not the right time,' and 'you have different needs.'" Wyatt rolls his eyes. "I knew the truth - they just knew we'd be too powerful if we were together. We were_ meant _to be together. The Charmed Sons." Wyatt smiles proudly. "Destiny."_

 _Chris doesn't know what to say. He doesn't know what to do. His hands are shaking, and all he can smell is blood. Just so much blood, everywhere._

 _"Do you think," Wyatt says, leaping suddenly from the throne. Chris flinches violently, lurching back against the table, hitting the back of his knees against the marble. "Maybe if we'd been together, if you'd been with me in the car, that we could've saved Mom?" Wyatt's eyes are wide, and he skips across the floor towards Chris, sidestepping bodies and pools of gore and debris on his way. "Do you think we could have stopped it? Changed history like that?" He comes to a stop directly in front of Chris, expression imploring, almost childish. His eyes wide, blown open and bleached gold by the ambrosia. Covered in blood. He looks like a demon. Chris wants to throw up. "I think we could've done it. I think we could've protected her, if they'd allowed us to. But they were keeping us apart even then. They knew we were too strong. They knew if they let us be together, that they wouldn't be able to enact their plan."_

 _"M - Mom died," Chris stutters, his skin crawling as he watches Wyatt's hands rise, move towards his shoulders. He forces himself to stand still, to let Wyatt touch him, rest his bloody hands on his upper arms. Swallows again and again, praying that it doesn't show on his face. "Mom died in a car wreck. It wa - was an accident."_

 _"No!" Wyatt grips his arms tighter, then lets go, smoothing out Chris' shirt, leaving bloody streaks wherever his hands touch. His face is apologetic. "Sorry. Didn't mean to yell. But no, man, that's wrong. They killed her. Surely you've figured that out by now? The most powerful witch who ever lived, dying in a car accident? That's ridiculous. I mean come on, you're all grown up now! My little brother, a man." He grins. "Time to stop believing in fairytales, Chris."_

 _"Who killed her?" Chris asks, digging his nails into the flesh of his palm._

 _Wyatt snorts, flinging one of his arms out. "Duh," he says. "Come on."_

 _Chris looks over his brother's shoulder at the massacre. Kevin the Younger, who used to play cards with Chris during the feasts, lies at the foot of the throne, a few feet away from Sandra. The entire left half of his face is missing._

 _"You," Chris tries, but the words die in his throat. He can't breathe._

 _"No, Chris." Wyatt sounds warm, happy. Like this is the best day of his life. He grips Chris' shoulders and squeezes tight, joyful tears glimmering in his gold eyes. "No._ Us." _He smiles. "About time, right?"_

 _Chris looks at his brother's face and thinks that he'd rather die. Would rather die right there, drop dead where he stands, than keep being touched by those hands. Being smiled at by that face._

 _"No," he manages, his lips numb. "No, Wyatt."_

 _"No?" Wyatt tilts his head, confused. "What do you mean, Ch -_ "

* * *

" - ris, can you hear me? Chris?"

Like glimpses of the sky as you fight towards the surface of the water, voices float in and out. Chris tries to hold onto it, pull himself up from the undercurrent, but it doesn't work. His head feels fuzzy and faraway.

" - more water. Make him drink as much as he can - Wyatt, careful of the crystals - "

"Shit!"

Chris feels himself jerk, his limbs moving of their own accord. Someone cries out in pain, another voice exclaiming angrily.

"Wyatt!"

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry - "

"Shut the hell up, both of you." Chris knows _that_ voice. "Gimme that. Chris?" Warm hands on his face, cradling his head against something soft. Burnt sage and vodka cranberry. His lightning strike. "Chris? Open your eyes for me, hotshot. Say something."

"Bee," Chris mumbles, trying to lift his hand. He feels like he's still underwater, trying to move through thick ocean. "Bee Sting."

"That's right." She laughs, tapping her fingernails against his face. He feels her kiss his forehead. "You gotta drink some water. Can you lift your head up a little? I'll help."

Chris grunts, prying his eyes open. There's light coming from somewhere above, piercingly bright. Movement near his feet, and the soft hum of the crystal cage. They're still in Magic School, then.

Bianca's strong hands brace his neck, and with effort, Chris manages to hold his head up long enough to gulp down some water from some kind of bowl. Soft voices fade in and out, snippets of conversation he has trouble tracking -

" - before he comes back, if we can't pull it off - "

"Your mother - our first priority - "

"Shh." Bianca guides his head back down - her lap, that's what he's laying on. "Shh, Chris, just rest. You're shaking like a leaf."

"Lightning," Chris mumbles, trying to convey a thought that he himself can't even form. " _Lightning._ "

"I know, I know. Shh, just rest - "

"No," Chris says, needing her to understand, feeling it slipping through his weak fingers, "no, it's - "

* * *

 _" - his only weakness," May says firmly, slamming her palm against the jamb of Chris' door. "You know it, I know it. Everyone knows it, Chris, but nobody's brave enough to actually say it to your face! Well fuck that, and fuck your feelings - "_

 _"You think I don't know?" Chris interrupts hotly. "My family's dead too, May. All of them. You think I don't know why?"_

 _"No." May pulls her hand back, her face going grey with exhaustion. "No, I know you know."_

 _Chris watches her slump in his doorway, his own resolve to anger cracking, too. "Sorry."_

 _"No." She shakes her head, her curls bouncing limply against the side of her face. "No."_

 _Chris glances over her shoulder at the small crowd that's accumulated at the end of the hallway, pretending not to eavesdrop, and rolls his eyes. "Get in here."_

 _May lets him pull her inside, and instantly makes a beeline for his window - the same chair she always sits in, with the only halfway decent view of the mountains in the entire house. She collapses into the cushions and closes her eyes, pulling her sweater tighter around her shoulders._

 _"We're all stressed," Chris says, forgiving her without words. May's mouth tightens. "You want a drink or you wanna yell at me some more?"_

 _"Honestly? Both," May says. "But neither of those seem like a good idea at the moment, regardless."_

 _Chris takes a seat on the edge of his bed, folding his hands together across his knees. There's a painful worm in his chest, a wiggle of discomfort that's been getting harder and harder to ignore, lately. "Is that really what you think I'm doing? Hiding?"_

 _"No." May looks shamefaced. "No, I just - "_

 _"If you have a plan worth hearing, I'm listening. But otherwise we're still at square one."_

 _"I shouldn't have said it like that, I didn't mean it," May says, "I just meant - we're not getting anywhere, and we're all talking around the fact that he wants you on his side," May says, blunt and unapologetic as ever. "The others think I'm lashing out at you because I blame you for Bradley. But that's not it, Chris. I swear to God that's not it."_

 _Chris' heart feels heavy. "I know, May."_

 _May's lips tremble, and she turns her face away again, back towards the window. "I'm not talking about suicide missions," she says, "and I'm not talking about recklessness. I'm talking about a change in strategy. I'm talking about approaching this fight like an actual fucking_ fight, _instead of some bullshit political argument where one side is wasting time trying to organize marches and protests, and the other side is_ killing people."

 _"That's not fair," Chris protests, "you know we're all doing more than that."_

 _"Whatever. You know what I mean."_

 _"I think I know," Chris says, "and I think I agree with you, but I don't know if you've noticed but we're a little low on resources here - not to mention allies. Vince and Nylah are one more bad fight away from bailing, and it's not like we've got a phone book full of friends to call - "_

 _"So we recruit," May says stubbornly. "We should've been doing that from the start anyway."_

 _"And we still need to_ feed _people," Chris finishes. "How are we supposed to stop anything like this? Fight anybody, let alone...him?"_

 _"That's how it works," May says quietly. "That's how they do it. They make you so desperate for the basics that you can't focus on the big picture." She shakes her head, muttering. "That's always how they do it."_

 _Chris rubs his face with his hands, exhausted. It feels like years since he's had a decent night's sleep. Let alone - a real meal, Goddess. Hot food - it's like a fantasy, at this point._

 _"We need to think outside the box," May insists. "We need to start using your connection to him, and Chris, I'm_ sorry," _she says, sounding stricken, "I'm sorry. I wish we didn't have to. But he's your brother. And he's clearly obsessed with you. We'd be stupid if we didn't take advantage of that. We'd deserve to lose."_

 _She's right. He knows she's right. "I'm listening."_

 _"They think he's good," May says quietly. "Even when he's slaughtering people on live broadcast, they still think he's good. Because he says he's an angel, a savior, and they don't know enough not to believe it." Her jaw firms. "Imagine what you could do with the people who do know enough? Imagine how many friends you could make."_

 _Chris clenches his hands, his heart pounding._

 _"I know you can do it," May says confidently. Moments like these remind Chris of how old she is, how long she's been alive. She was born in the eighteenth century; the only reason she was never made an Elder is because she didn't want it. "You're charming, you're handsome. You have an incredible name - the_ real _Halliwell name. Excalibur can go fuck itself, Chris, anyone who knows you knows_ you're _the real inheritor of the Charmed Ones' legacy." Chris looks away, his eyes stinging, absurdly. "If anyone can smack sense into people, it's you. You know it's you."_

 _"So you do think I'm hiding," Chris says simply, firming his jaw._

 _May reaches out, her hand emerging from the bulk of her oversized sweater. Chris lets her touch his wrist, squeeze the tips of his fingers tightly. "You deserve more of a choice than this," she says softly. "You deserve much, much more."_

 _Chris shakes his head. "I just don't know what I should be doing, what move I should make. If I make myself a public figure, then we open ourselves up to a thousand more problems, and we shoot ourselves in the foot too, as far as getting the mortal refugees to safety - "_

 _"Well maybe we need to open ourselves up a little," May counters, getting heated again, "because what we've been doing obviously isn't - "_

* * *

" - working as you intended. You want him alive, don't you?"

"Don't tell me what I want," Wyatt snarls. No - not Wyatt. Not-Wyatt. "You don't know where I come from - what he was, his - his _vision_ for the world, it was - "

"No, I don't." Richard's voice is gentle, empathetic. Chris cracks his eyes open, cautiously; his head is still in Bianca's lap. Wyatt - real Wyatt - is at his feet, his cuffed hands curled protectively around Chris' ankles. "I don't know. I wasn't there. But _you_ were. You could tell me."

Footsteps, loud and echoing. Running water, from somewhere close by - and Chris realizes that his clothes are damp. For some reason, this strikes him as funny. Did they hit one of the pipes with an energy ball or something? His shoulders twitch, and Bianca's fingers tighten at the scruff of his neck, her head dipping downwards so that the ends of her hair brush his face, concealing it from the rest of the room.

"Shh," Bianca murmurs, barely audible. "Don't move. He's getting through to her."

Chris presses his face into her thigh in acknowledgment, forcing his muscles to relax.

"I know what you're doing," the shapeshifter snarls. "Pathetic."

"You're going to kill us anyway," Richard says, insufferably calm. "Don't you want us to know why? Don't you want us to know _exactly_ why we're suffering?"

Chris nudges Wyatt's arm with one foot. To his credit, Wyatt doesn't react visibly - just tightens his hand on Chris' ankle in acknowledgment.

"Chris knows," the shapeshifter says. The water is still running freely; it has to be a pipe or a water main. The floor beneath them is damp, and Bianca's hands are wet and cool against Chris' skin. They must have fought, when they were being moved into the crystal cage from wherever they were being kept before. If it weren't for the null cuffs, the shapeshifter wouldn't have stood a chance. "Don't you, Chris? Did you tell them what you were really doing, when you went back? Or did you fill their heads with your lies, like you always do?"

"He's unconscious," Wyatt says scathingly, but the shapeshifter just laughs.

"No, he isn't," she says.

Chris doesn't move. Bianca's hands tighten on his neck.

"Tell us," Richard urges. "What did he lie about?"

"Everything!" A loud thump, like a fist hitting a wall, or something being thrown. "He probably told you he was _saving_ the future - he _condemned_ it! Look at this place - Magic School hasn't had a headmaster in years. The center of our heritage - abandoned to rot!"

"Shameful," Richard says. "I know. It really is - "

"Corrupt mortals, leading mankind head first into destruction," comes the furious voice again, sort of like Wyatt's, but also very markedly different - higher, reedier, and - to Chris' surprise - the hint of an accent, now. She must be losing her grip on the spell. "There was none of that under Wyatt. All of this could be fixed! The wildfires, the food scarcity - hurricanes and tsunamis - all that suffering for nothing! Wyatt saved us from all of that. He was leading us into a brighter future - a future of peace, and harmony, and balance - the future the Goddess _truly_ intended - "

Chris can feel Bianca's outrage like a physical presence, seething in a tight ball above his head. "Harmony," she spits in disgust. Chris quickly reaches up and grabs her hand to quiet her, but -

" _True harmony,_ " the shapeshifter replies stridently, her voice cracking with passion. "A world without war, without secrecy. Where we were given respect - true respect! Of all people, Phoenix, he thought you would understand - but you spat on your own legacy, just as your selfish, childish husband did, turning up his nose at the honor he was offered - "

Chris hooks his fingers in the neck of Bianca's shirt, tugging her down harshly, quickly before she responds with something that makes it worse. "Lightning," he hisses, pressing his face into the curtain of her damp hair. "Tell Wyatt - "

" - why you want him to suffer as long as possible, isn't it? To see his own mistakes," Richard is saying, an even-voiced, steady presence, somewhere in the darkness beyond Chris' eyelids. "So you can prove your loyalty to Wyatt? The _real_ Wyatt. Of course you want him to see how you never gave up on him, or his vision. _Your_ vision."

"It should have been everyone's vision," the shapeshifter mutters bitterly. Movement above Chris' head - Wyatt's hands moving, falling from Chris' ankles, shifting further towards Chris' head. Bianca squeezes Chris' neck softly, bending her head again to obscure his face with her hair.

"He must have loved you very much," Richard says, "to have trusted you with this mission."

"It wasn't like that!" the shapeshifter snaps, furious. The cage crackles, and Chris shudders involuntarily. "It wasn't - he was above such - he didn't - "

"He didn't see you," Richard says, with an air of understanding. The truth starts to dawn for Chris, too - _our_ heritage, she'd said. Respect. Legacy. "He couldn't see your dedication - your passion."

"I - " a pause. Boots clicking on a wet floor. "It wasn't like that."

"Of course not," Richard placates. "It wasn't seedy. It was respectful. Important. You were saving the world - "

"The _universe!_ " Her voice booms eerily, bouncing off the high ceilings, echoing like a nightmare back into their glowing prison. Bianca rests her mouth against Chris' forehead, in a frozen kiss. Her cheeks are wet. "It - it was bigger than us, bigger than all of us. He was...purifying us. Leading us into - into the light - "

Chris reaches out blindly with his free hand, and Wyatt takes it silently. Chris uses it to pull him close, trusting that Richard is distraction enough, and whispers in his brother's ear: "lightning will break the cuffs. Too tired, need your help. Channel power through my hands."

Wyatt breathes out shakily and squeezes Chris' hand. Bianca is deathly still, shielding both of them with her body - Chris dares to open his eyes, and catches a glimpse of her face - there's a bright red wound on her forehead, and her eyes are clenched shut. His stomach lurches.

"It must have been beautiful," Richard says reverently. "It must have been just...amazing."

"It would have been," says the shapeshifter, tone shifting dangerously. Chris tugs at Wyatt's hand urgently; they need to make their move now, while they still have a chance. "It would have been everything, if _little brother_ hadn't - "

"Now," Bianca hisses, and Chris feels a surge of power enter his body, like a sudden blast of water from a fireman's hose, spreading up to his head from his left hand, still clutching Wyatt's. Chris frantically tries to channel it, struggling to keep his head beneath the onslaught of pure magic ( _Christ,_ is this what Wyatt's powers are like? Is this what Wyatt feels _all the time?_ No wonder he lost his mind) and furiously, indignantly, summons the lightning that hovers constantly in his bones, the only inheritance from his original father that ever got him anywhere. The bright white blue of Elder magic lights up the cage in a burst of electricity. The cuffs around their wrists explode all at once, unable to hold up against the sudden release of power, and Chris cries out, the shards of metal and plastic leaving scouring cuts down his wrists. Dimly, he can hear Wyatt, Bianca, and Richard crying out too - it must have done the same to them. He presses his bleeding wrist against his chest, feeling Bianca moving away from him in reaction to the pain - but the hand holding Wyatt's stays trapped, held tightly by his brother's fingers.

"No!" the shapeshifter screeches, and immediately the cage ignites, sending all three of them crashing to the floor. Wyatt's hand rips away as he falls, crying out in pain. "What did you - "

* * *

 _" - bring me this time?" Bianca lets her legs fall open, the blanket draped enticingly over one thigh. She's not the first woman Chris has ever slept with, but she is the most important, and the only one he's ever met that seems to truly enjoy seduction for its own sake. It comes naturally to her - even the way she sleeps is sexy. Chris doesn't know how he got so goddamn lucky._

 _"First, you have to promise you're going to share - "_

 _"Of course I'll share! I always share," Bianca says, feigning offense, but she's grinning ear to ear, shameless._

 _Chris shoots her a skeptical look, but lifts his prize carefully out of its bag. Or - her prize, he should say. "I'm holding you to that."_

 _"Chocolate?!" Bianca sits up, and the blanket falls away, leaving her torso completely exposed. She doesn't even seem to really notice. "Oh my God,_ Chris, _is this - oh my God, it's dark chocolate. You brought me_ dark _chocolate - "_

 _"Because I love you so very, very much, and I am the best boyfriend-slash-partner-slash-sex God who ever lived - ah! Hold up," Chris says, clutching the precious chocolate bar to his chest, out of her greedy reach. "C'mon, you gotta say it."_

 _"You're gonna make me - !? Chris, I haven't had chocolate in like, ten years. Come on."_

 _"I'll give it to Haley's kids," Chris threatens, stifling a grin. "It'll be gone in like, a second. A fraction of a second. Negative seconds - "_

 _"Fine." Bianca huffs, crossing her arms across her breasts. "You were right, I was wrong: epazote is too strong to use as a stabilizing agent in potions. Okay? You happy?"_

 _"Yes," Chris says, tossing her the chocolate. She catches it in mid-air and flops back down on her back, sighing happily. "Thank you for cleaning up the cauldron too, by the way - oh wait! You didn't do that at all, you conned poor Zarabeth into doing it - "_

 _"She offered!" Bianca protests, laughing. Unwrapping the chocolate halfway, she pauses and brings it to her face, inhaling deeply and closing her eyes. "Mmm. God, this smells like...like - "_

 _"Childhood," Chris says, kicking his shoes off and joining her in bed. She opens her arms for him, holding the precious candy aloft in the air between them. "You know it's not technically freely offered when the person doing the offering is head over heels in lust for you - "_

 _"Zarabeth is too good for me," Bianca says. "She wouldn't actually want it for real - she just likes the attention. She does it with all the older girls, and you know it - "_

 _"So wild how you manage to make it seem like a favor you're doing her," Chris says, amused, "this lovestruck teenager who does your fucking laundry, oh sure - you're just mentoring her, right?"_

 _"Shut up!" Bianca squeals. "Or I'm not gonna share."_

 _"Yes you fucking are going to share, or I'm taking the whole thing back," Chris threatens._

 _Bianca grins wickedly and licks the top edge of the chocolate. Her eyes nearly roll back in her head. "Oh my God. Oh my God that's good. Holy shit."_

 _"Lemme have some."_

 _Bianca carefully snaps off a corner piece and brings it to his lips. Chris bites it right out of her fingers, his hand on her wrist._

 _"Holy shit."_

 _"Right?" She takes her own delicate bite, resting her head against his shoulder, her eyes closed. "Wow."_

 _"I'd forgotten how sweet it was," Chris comments, rolling it around in his mouth as it melts. "Isn't that weird? How you can forget how something tastes but still miss it?"_

 _"Like steak," Bianca says, through a mouthful. She licks one of her fingers, smacking her lips. "Ooh, filet mignon. With bearnaise sauce."_

 _"Pumpkin pie," Chris says, a little dreamily. "With real whipped cream."_

 _"Coffee," Bianca says suddenly, and they both groan, almost in tandem. She snorts, laying her head back down against his chest. "Okay, stop it - we'll drive ourselves mad. Where'd you get this? Did you kill a demon for it? Please tell me it was someone I knew."_

 _"Nah," Chris says, "I took it from Billie's place."_

 _"No way - why the hell were you there? Did you see her?"_

 _"No," Chris says, mood darkening. "Nylah and I were looking for more painkillers - you know, for Matt's leg? Billie's operation is one of the few left on the continent with the real stuff. Not cut with anything, you know. But she wasn't even there - ran into one of Wyatt's security grunts, but it was nothing."_

 _Bianca is quiet for a moment. "Sorry," she finally says, pressing her cheek into his chest affectionately._

 _"Thanks." Chris thinks about it for a second. "I'm glad she wasn't there. I don't think I could face her."_

 _Bianca doesn't reply - just feeds him another piece of chocolate, her fingers lingering at the corners of his mouth. Chris smiles down at her, his heart drifting somewhere dangerously close to contentment._

 _"I gotta say," she says after a moment, "this is the best present you've ever brought back from a raid."_

 _"Just think, as soon as May clears you for missions, you can go out on supply runs and bring_ me _back presents."_

 _"Aw, but I've so enjoyed being your prisoner of war," Bianca says, lifting another melting piece of chocolate to his mouth. "Wouldn't you like to keep me captive a bit longer? Make really, really sure you can trust me?"_

 _"I trust you as far as I can throw you, Phoenix," Chris says playfully, "which isn't that far. I'm pretty skinny, and you've got all these big tough muscles - "_

 _Bianca laughs out loud, squirming away from his touch, nearly dropping the chocolate in the struggle. "Stop! Stop, don't tickle me, you little sh - "_

* * *

" - ut up, shut up, shut _up!_ " A crash, and a groan, much louder than before. Chris lifts his face from a pool of dirty water, his heart pounding. "You don't _deserve_ this face, you don't _deserve_ \- "

A scream, and another crash. A loud groan, which Chris recognizes as Wyatt. He scrambles to his feet, blinking in the darkness - he can't make out anything. He can barely lift himself to his hands and knees, he's so weak - every muscle he has is screaming out in protest.

"Wyatt! Stop - please - " Richard's voice. Chris blinks, clearing the spots out of his eyes. The crystal cage is gone, one of the crystals close enough to see - charred and scorched, leeched of its magic - and the room is still dark. The voices are muffled, though, as if coming from another room. Chris can only barely make out the dark shape of a body, lying a few feet away, and he scrambles over, his breath frozen.

"Bianca," he says, touching her shoulder. She shudders, breath hitching, and Chris goes light headed with relief. "Jesus, baby. What the fuck. Bianca - open your eyes - "

From faraway, another sickening cry. Chris' stomach goes cold.

"Wyatt," Bianca murmurs, then comes to with a jolt, clutching Chris' wrist. "Chris. Oh shit."

"Can you stand?" Chris asks urgently. "She's torturing him - if she kills him - "

"Oh _shit,_ " Bianca says, and pulls herself up with his help. "Yes. Shit. Yes - "

"Easy," Chris says, half-leaning on her, half-supporting her, as they struggle to their feet. Bianca's breathing hard, and so is he, but the sounds from the other room push them forward, each one more terrifying than the last.

There's dim light coming from the windows, and they past the burst water main - the source of the cold water - halfheartedly spitting at them as they stagger past. The foyer they've been held in opens into a grand corridor that Chris vaguely remembers from 2003 - portraits, couches, statues, the whole cliche nine yards. Richard is right on the other side of the door, collapsed on the ground, both of his legs bleeding. His face is creased in pain, and he looks up at their entry, his eyes going wide. "Chris - "

"You!" A blast of light, and Bianca's surprised grunt as Chris pulls her to the ground, only just avoiding the massive energy ball hurled their way. Chris throws up a shield, halfway on instinct - the shapeshifter has Wyatt pinned against the wall with telekinesis. His face is bleeding, dazed - the shapeshifter herself is too, still half-transformed into the Wyatt of his nightmares, but her face is morphed absurdly, caught in-between one person and another. "You," she says, menacing and crazed, "you arrogant, selfish, son of a - "

"Watch your mouth, bitch," Bianca yells, and lobs an energy ball of her own. It hits one of the statues, just inches away from the shapeshifter's shoulder, spraying both she and Wyatt with chunks of debris.

High-pitched, unbalanced laughter fills the corridor. "A Phoenix, fighting for the light!" she says, almost sing-song, "how _romantic,_ how sweet!"

"Psycho," Bianca hisses, moving into a crouch, battle ready. "How long can you keep the shield up?"

Chris has it extended to cover Richard, but only barely, and he's already trembling from the effort. "Not long," he says, through gritted teeth. Shields are hard enough normally, let alone after being tortured and drugged for who knows who long. "Whatever you're gonna do, do it fast."

"Wyatt hit her in the left shoulder, she's bleeding," Richard says quickly, "but she injected him with something - you gotta get her quick - before he - "

"Talk talk talk is cheap!" Another energy ball, this one a direct hit to the center of Chris' shield. He grunts, feeling something in his head pop, like a release of air pressure, as he struggles to keep it steady.

"Fuck this," Bianca says, conjuring her athame in a burst of black smoke. "Chris, cover me."

"Watch yourself," he warns her, gathering his will and focusing the strongest part of the shield on Bianca's position. "And go for the throat."

"I always do," Bianca says, smiling darkly. She rises to her feet, her eyes narrow, and conjures a ball of seething, dark energy with her free hand, using the athame to focus it.

"Oh, how scary," the shapeshifter taunts. Her hair is long and dark on one side of her head, short, blonde and curly on the other. Bleeding from one shoulder, one leg longer than the other, half her body turned feminine, she looks like some weird Frankenstein creation, shadowed in the eerie light from the magic and laughing like a horror movie clown. Wyatt looks half-dead already behind her, pinned grotesquely against the wall by her magic, an invisible hand squishing him flat against the wood. "How terrifying - big bad Bianca and her big bad _balls_."

"I'm gonna remember this one," Bianca says, mostly to herself, and sends her magic flying. Telegraphing its path, the shapeshifter moves out of its way easily, but the real secret of a Phoenix's athame is this: they can use it to focus attacks even after they've been sent. Bianca jerks her wrist, and the energy ball corrects its course and hits the shapeshifter directly in the chest, sending her flying back against the wall with a nauseating, echoing crunch.

Chris drops the shield immediately, light headed again from the effort. Richard is trying to stand, struggling against whatever injury has been done to his legs, and Chris stumbles over to heal him. He can manage that. That much is second nature, at least.

"Is she dead?" Richard asks, slumping in relief as Chris' magic - slower than usual, but still steady - heals his wounds. She broke his fucking kneecaps, Chris notices - the sadistic bitch. "Is she?"

Bianca moves cautiously, wiping blood from her face with her forearm. "She's not moving," she says cautiously. Chris pulls away from Richard as the injuries fade, helping the other man to his feet as they both peer into the dark hallway. The shapeshifter's body is a crumpled, bloody mess, and she doesn't seem to be moving or breathing, but -

"Can't be too careful," Chris mutters, and moves forward, to Bianca's side. Reaching out for her shoulder, he leans a bit of his weight on her, asking without words. She leans back silently, letting him lean against her more fully, and watches silently as he reaches out with one fist and swiftly, emotionlessly, crushes the shapeshifter's throat. It crumples beneath his telekinesis like wet paper.

Another pop, like the air itself is cracking, and then Wyatt falls from his suspended position instantly in the moment of the death, his body hitting the floor with a dull thud. "Fuck," Richard says loudly, in sick surprise. He rushes forward to crouch at Wyatt's feet, his eyes wide as he looks at them over one shoulder. "Fuck."

"Is he still breathing?" Bianca asks, low and urgent.

Richard blinks, fumbling at Wyatt's throat. His shoulders sag a little. "Yes," he says. He looks back over at them. "Whatever she gave him - it had to have been poison, whatever she used on - on you. Can you heal him?"

"I can try," Chris says, moving towards them. Bianca walks with him, still half holding him up. "But we should get Leo or Paige here, just in case. Can we call for them? What did she do to this place to keep them out - is it wards, runes, what?"

"I don't know, but now that she's dead it's probably defunct," Richard says. Chris sinks to his knees, his hands already glowing, as Richard turns his head to yell, "Paige! Leo!"

It's almost instantaneous, the blue glow of orbs that fill the corridor - as if they'd been waiting for the call. Which - of course they had been. Chris doesn't look up, concentrating everything he has on healing, but he hears Paige exclaim, in a horrified voice, "oh my God!"

"Watch out," Richard says sharply, "watch the floor - she's got traps - Leo, we need your help, quickly - "

"Oh God." Leo's voice now. Chris still doesn't look up, still pouring his magic into his hands, trying to penetrate deep into Wyatt's weak, poisoned body. He feels his father kneel beside him - the familiar warmth, broad shoulders, the sharp scent of ozone - and another pair of hands join his. The surge of additional power is almost electrifying; Chris sits up straighter, his energy suddenly renewed. "Paige - we need you too - quickly!"

"Is it the poison?" he hears Paige ask, shrill with almost-panic, but her hands quickly join too, the white light of healing almost blinding now. "Oh God - he's so weak. Leo, do you feel it - "

"I feel it," Leo says, his shoulder pressing up against Chris'. "Everyone together; focus on the heart. Come on, son," he mutters. Chris closes his eyes, his own heart aching. "Come on, Wy. Hang on. Stay with us."

Chris keeps his eyes closed, trying desperately to concentrate. The torture had done plenty to weaken him, but healing has never been his strongest suit anyway - it's too instinctual, too heart-focused; he's never taken to it naturally. Still, Chris sinks himself into it, pouring everything he can spare into his hands, letting himself sink down through to Wyatt's body, bypassing the torn blood vessels and bruised muscle that can heal on their own to concentrate solely on the rot that's eating away at his heart and lungs and brain, the poison that's quietly - but swiftly - leading Wyatt's soul into darkness. Chris grits his teeth, surrounded by his family's magic on all sides, and holds on for dear life, willing Wyatt to stay. _This_ Wyatt. The Wyatt who deserves life, the brother he was meant to have, all along.

 _Please,_ he thinks, in the quietest part of his mind. Not quite a prayer, but not _not_ a prayer, either. _Please, let this go right. Please let us win._

Someone cries out, and suddenly, like the ground moving beneath their feet - Wyatt's heart skips a beat. Chris opens his eyes, and realizes Wyatt's are open too - just for a second, before he goes limp again, falling into a more natural sleep. Chris lets his hands fall, dizzy, seeing Leo and Paige do the same.

"Is he alright?" Richard asks. "Did it work?"

"I felt most of it fade," Paige says anxiously, "but I couldn't tell if - Leo, could you?"

"We need to get him home," Leo says, voice grave. "He needs rest, and - we can keep working on him there. Poison is - it's tricky, we can heal his body, but - his mind, his soul - "

"Chris?" Bianca is suddenly there, a firm presence at his side again. She sounds concerned, which surprises Chris for some reason - though of course she's concerned, now that he thinks about it it makes sense - now that he's thinking at all, it's actually kind of hard to think, which strikes him as incredibly strange. "Chris, are you okay? Baby, look at me."

"Chris?" Leo's voice now. Chris feels even dizzier than before, and laying down seems like a great idea right about now. "Is he hurt too? Chris - _Chris -_ "

* * *

 _"Chris?" Wyatt sounds almost confused, almost_ hurt, _which is just appalling. He dares to feel betrayed? To do this, and then feel that? "Chris - why would you do that? Why would you try to hurt me? I don't - did I do something wrong?"_

 _Chris wants to laugh, and so he does, looking down at the blood that's been streaked across the tile, the crumpled bodies of the purest, most Good beings in the universe, sprawled out like a slasher movie. "You - you asshole. What did you do?" Chris glares at his brother, who stares up at him in betrayed confusion. "Why did you do this?"_

 _"Chris, you're...upset," Wyatt says, rising slowly to his feet. His head is bleeding, from where he'd hit the altar when Chris had thrown him across the room, but he wipes it away like it's nothing. "It's - okay, yeah, I get it. It's a lot to process. So let's just slow down, okay?" He grins. "Let's just...take it slow."_

 _"Fuck you," Chris spits, his knees shaking. He firms his shoulders, watching as the blood on Wyatt's robes begins to smoke. "Fuck you. No."_

 _"Chris," Wyatt says evenly, his face darkening. Growing cold, like an oncoming storm. "Come on. Don't do anything you'll regret."_

 _Chris almost laughs again. "Oh don't worry," he says, looking down at Kevin's body one last time. Wyatt starts moving towards him cautiously, and Chris lets him come, his heart hardening with every inch. "I won't."_


	12. Chapter 12

Chris wakes up in an unfamiliar bedroom. His first instinct is alarm, because his entire body hurts - he's clearly been tortured - and he can't remember how he got here. But as he stares at the ceiling, his heart racing, the memories slowly trickle back in, and then he recognizes the wallpaper. He closes his eyes again, forcing himself back into calm. He's at the Manor. It's fine - he's at the Manor.

He's also not alone in the bed - Bianca is curled up beside him beneath a thick comforter, sleeping hard, her hair plastered to her forehead with sweat. Chris fumbles with the blankets - his hands have pins and needles, like he's slept on top of them or something. His whole body sort of feels like that. But he manages it - pulling the comforter away, so she doesn't overheat, Chris leans in and rests his forehead for a second against her sticky, dirty shoulder. Just listening to her wheeze. Her snores sound like a goddamn chorus of angels.

There's a pitcher of water on a bedside table, and Chris doesn't even bother with the glass - just drinks out of the side, gulping half of it down in-between long, slow gasps. He leaves the other half for Bianca - still wheezing, like she's congested, or sick. Chris smooths her hair, listening to her struggle for a clear breath, a little concerned, but she tosses a little in her sleep, moving over onto her back, and her breathing eases a little. Just normal wheezing then, Chris decides, listening to her for another fond, quiet moment. God, he hopes the rest of his mornings are exactly like this. He should be so lucky.

Now fully awake, he recognizes what used to be Phoebe's bedroom - now a guest room, judging by the bland furniture and empty closet. Chris struggles to his feet, walking slowly - everything is sore - and slips quietly out into the hallway, easing the door closed so that it doesn't creak. Phoebe's door had that loud squeak whenever you opened or shut it - and no amount of oil could ever make it quiet. Chris never knew the Manor that well from his own childhood of course, but living in 2003 had him well acquainted with all the quirks - the floorboards that rattle, the ghostly knocking in the vents, the moss that creeped inside, growing stubbornly through the cracks in the roofs and window panes, the birds in the rafters that nobody could ever see - let alone shoo outside. Normal house things that magic couldn't fix, because normal houses don't stay normal after shielding five generations of witches from the world outside.

Chris picked it all up quickly. And he remembers it all, still.

Most of the house is quiet; Chris drifts towards the stairs a bit warily, but it's almost as if no one is home, which can't be true. The bedroom at the end of the hall is shut tight - Piper's room - but there's soft light shining from beneath the door, and he finally hears voices from the other side. A woman crying - Piper, maybe. Chris drifts back silently, not wanting to intrude. Wyatt must still be unconscious, then.

He thinks of going down to the kitchen, making tea or something, but - this isn't his house, even after everything. Even in 2003, it wasn't - as comfortable as he eventually became, he was still always - always and forever - a guest here. So instead, Chris drifts to the other staircase - the attic. The one place that is his - by right, if not by ownership.

It's a mirror of the last time he was here: Chris steps through the doorway, already sensing another's presence. There, in a different spot, but flipping quietly through the Book of Shadows like P.J. had done only days before, is a blonde woman so familiar, but also not: Billie.

Chris steps inside the room, letting the door swing open, out over the stairs - just looking at her. Her head rises at his entrance, and she freezes at the sight of him, hand suspended mid-motion over the Book. And there they are - there it is. Neither of them move for a long, frozen minute.

"Chris," she finally says, letting her hand fall slowly back down to rest on the yellowed pages. "You're awake."

"Yeah." Chris just stares at her, thinking a thousand different things all at once. "I was - I woke up and nobody was around, so - "

"Yeah, um." Billie's eyes are red, and she's dressed sloppily - Chris has only seen her as disheveled as this a few times in his life, and none of them were pleasant occasions. Her hair is unwashed, oily, pulled back in a ponytail, and she's barefoot. Chris' eyes catch on her bare toes for some reason - pale, scrunched up in the carpet. They're painted bright pink. "Wyatt's still unconscious. Piper and Leo are with him...and Paige went Up There to ask the other Elders for advice."

"Good idea," Chris says distantly, feeling surreal. "Phoebe, and...the others…?"

"Home. Wherever." Billie shrugs, still staring at him, unblinking. "I think Coop still has the kids Up There, too, with Paige's pretty boy cop." She frowns a little. "I don't make a habit of keeping track of the Halliwell husbands."

Now that's a Billie sentence, Chris thinks. He moves deeper into the room, cautiously, but she doesn't seem aggressive or suspicious. She definitely doesn't know it was him who attacked her at the shop, he knows that. She'd be tearing him a new one right now if she did. And if she's allowed into the Manor, even at this most vulnerable moment…then maybe…

"Christ," Billie mutters, blinking finally. She shakes her head. "I can't believe - it really is you, isn't it?"

"Yeah," Chris says, taking a long breath. "Yeah, it's me."

Billie just stares at him some more. Chris tries not to fidget, feeling like a ninth grader again, having to explain his third suspension in one semester to unimpressed Aunt Billie, who knew all the tricks and all the excuses you did and then some, besides that. You wanna party, party like a grown up. Be responsible, dumbass. Look me in the eye and admit it. He shudders.

"I thought you were dead," Billie finally says, abruptly. She blinks again, still eerily intense. "I thought you were fucking dead, Christopher."

"Don't call me that," Chris says.

"I'll call you what I want to call you, dipshit," Billie snaps. She reaches out one hand, gesturing at the empty fainting couch a few feet away from where she's sitting. "Come sit down, for fuck's sake. Stop hovering."

Chris obeys, his emotions sort of muted, like they are when bad things happen. He never feels it completely in the moment - the crash always comes later. Process in private, get through the now - that's what you do.

"We got a lot to talk about, huh," Billie says, pushing the Book closed and setting carefully aside, on top of a closed trunk. "They told me what happened. Everything with the shapeshifter - and your girlfriend."

"Fiance," Chris corrects.

"Oh." Billie sneers a little, but she seems to instantly regret it, her expression growing solemn. "Oh."

"Her name is Bianca," Chris says, through a scraped throat. "I met her - I recruited her. For the Resistance. She worked for Wyatt, she's a Phoenix."

"Oh," Billie says again, sounding impressed this time. "I think I've heard of her. The Chicago branch, right? Last name was...Rodriguez, Reyes, something like that - "

"Rosado," Chris says, all of a sudden blinking away tears, which feels ridiculous. He clenches his jaw, trying not to show it, but he could never pull that off, with Billie. She saw through all of it, and never gave a shit about it. "Bianca Cornelia Rosado. Her mother was Lynn Mitchell, a Phoenix. Her father was a mortal. A criminal, she says. Some kind of mobster type."

"Worst of both worlds, huh." Billie's still staring at him, eyes wide and dark. Chris desperately tries not to fidget. "Bianca Halliwell, soon, I guess."

"I - we haven't talked about it."

"'Rosado-Halliwell' isn't too terrible." Billie sounds a little dazed herself, and she rubs her face a little, leaving a streak of red across her cheek from the pressure. "She nice? Treats you well, all that?"

"Yeah," Chris says, feeling absolutely absurd. What the fuck is he doing? What the fuck are they even talking about, sitting here like this? "She's - nice, yeah."

"Good." Silence falls, and they they are: staring at each other again. Chris feels his throat freeze up: what the fuck to say? How the fuck to say it?

"I - " Billie frowns, crossing her arms across her chest. Her face is pale, almost gaunt-looking. Without the makeup, she just looks like what she is: a middle-aged woman halfway through a hard life, too bruised to be nice, too nice to quit trying. Chris feels nauseous. "Christ, I can't get over it. Here you are, like it's nothing. Like I didn't lock up an empty coffin in that fucking mausoleum next to Pheebs."

"You really thought I was dead?" Chris asks, catching up to the thought. "You thought I was - the whole time? Didn't Wyatt - " he stops, unable to get through the rest of it.

"No, he didn't tell me shit," Billie says harshly. She laughs bitterly. "We didn't do a lot of talking, little Wy and I."

Chris closes his eyes, feeling the guilt settle down firmly around his shoulders. His old friend, back again. As always.

"Fuck it." Billie rubs her face again, breathing out harshly. "Fuck it. Whatever. Let's leave that shit for tomorrow." She shakes her head. "I made this for you - for the aches. Heard you got crystal-shocked a few dozen times." She rises to her feet, moving over to the work table, scattered with potion ingredients. There's a vial ready and waiting, with light green liquid inside. "My cure-all. Sells like crazy."

Chris takes it with a shaking hand, staring down at the potion, his chest seized up, tight like a burn wound. He takes off the cork with a shaking hand, and downs it one shot, fear and guilt and regret damming up his mouth, keeping the words silent.

"The others will be back soon." Billie runs her fingers through her bangs, tightens her ponytail. She keeps staring at him still, like she can't bear to look away. Her shoulders are tight; Chris catches sight of her own shaking hand, reaching out and then jerking back, like she wants to touch but can't bring herself to ask. "They're worried he'll wake up as - you know. Like we did."

"They should be," Chris croaks. "We all should be."

"He's dead," Billie says distantly. Her eyes are dull and sad. "Our Wyatt, I mean - he's dead. You can feel it, right? You can sense it like I can." She shudders. "Like a hole in the world."

Chris gapes silently, clenching the empty potion vial in one fist. He knows what she means, but he didn't realize it until she said it: a hole in the universe, where the center of it once rotated.

Billie returns to her seat, still looking at him strangely. Her lips tremble. "I - " she breaks off, biting her lip. "They've been good to me. You don't have to worry."

"I wasn't worried," Chris says numbly.

"It's not the same," she says quietly, like he didn't speak at all. "It'll never be - Pheebs…" she tears up, then rubs at her face again angrily, streaking her cheeks with red once more. "They're like two different people. Totally different people. It's the worst fucking thing in the world." Billie stares at him, her mouth twisted weirdly. "But it's nice, somehow, too. Isn't that fucked up? She's married to a man, here." She cackles - not a nice sound. "A fucking Cupid. But I still can't get enough of her. I can't stand her, but I wanna be around it all the time. It's ridiculous."

Chris leans forward on his knees, letting his face fall into his hands. Every breath hurts, and it's not because of his injury - he can already feel that pain receding. Only the old pain comes rushing in to fill the space - the harder shit, that you can't get rid of, ever.

"You little shit," Billie says, choking up a little. Pushing the words out angrily. "You little - dead! I thought you were dead!" She reaches out and hits him, suddenly, punching him hard in the shoulder. Chris reels back, blinking at her stupidly. "You fucking - I can't believe you - "

Chris grabs her fist before she can hit him again and she just - crumples, wrenching away and curling into her knees, wrapping her arms around her head like a little girl. He can hear her gasping for air.

"Billie," he says, the word sounding strange in his mouth. He moves onto his knees, at her feet, not touching her, but close enough to be touched, if she wanted. And he suddenly realizes that he wouldn't mind. "Bills, I - " didn't know you cared. I didn't mean it. He can't get the words out.

Billie shakes her head, her shoulders shaking. She laces her fingers together across her head, almost whining in her distress.

"Okay," Chris says, wiping tears away with the back of his hand. He nods, staring at the ground. "Okay. Leave that shit for tomorrow."

He can see it so clearly now - his own response. His anger, and his disdain. Billie always took the worst of it when he was a kid - stepping in to be the bad guy, sparing Aunt Pheebs the burden, because she had enough burdens already. Grounding him, sending him to his room, making him do his homework, eat his vegetables. Letting Pheebs do the fun stuff. She never agreed with them - or with Pheebs, for that matter. Never really wanted to be involved - still too fucked up about her dead sister, too bitter about magic in general, and what it did to her family. She stayed because she loved Pheebs despite herself, and she loved Chris, too - even when she refused to help him. She loved him apart from all of it - loyal to them both, even though she resented it. Not an ally - but family, regardless. Chris kneels there and watches her fight her own tears, and thinks, did I really get it so wrong? Did I really fuck it up this bad?

Yeah, he figures. He was overdue for a really big one. Everything in balance - it's the way of fate, in a life of magic.

"I'm sorry," he says, tentatively touching her knee. She shudders, sitting up suddenly with a gasp, and wiping hurriedly at her face. "I'm - I'm sorry, Bills. I'm so - "

"Shut up," she mutters, kicking him softly with one foot. "Just quit it."

"Okay."

"Get up here, lemme take a look at you." Billie holds out her hands. Chris rises up and lets her touch his cheeks with her palms, rubbing the bridge of his nose with one thumb. She peers into his face, narrow-eyed, her mouth turned downwards. "Yeah," she says, softly, rubbing at the scruff along his jaw. "Yeah, you did it, didn't you?"

"I tried to fix it," Chris confesses, softly. He closes his eyes, feeling every second of the past ten years pressing hard at his sternum, a lead weight right beneath his heart.

"You did," Billie says firmly, pushing at his shoulders. "Come on, you know you did."

"Sorry," Chris mutters again, eyes still closed. "About, uh - "

"Shut up," Billie says, slapping his cheek lightly so he opens his eyes. When she's satisfied he's looking back at her, she rolls her eyes at him. And people wonder why he's so melodramatic, he thinks. "Leave it. Just drop it. You get me?"

"Yeah," Chris says. "Yeah, okay."

* * *

Bianca sleeps through the rest of the day, dead to the world. He's still not sure how long they were held at Magic School, but he bets she was awake for every second of it; he doesn't try to rouse her. Chris sticks to the attic and the bedroom, letting Billie bring him food and pain potions which he drinks guiltily, avoiding her red-rimmed gaze.

"Leo's downstairs," Billie tells him, not bothering to lower her voice for Bianca's sake. She hovers by the door, her eyes sharp on them both. "He and Paige just got back. You should go down and talk to him."

"If she wakes up and I'm not here," Chris starts.

"I'll stay with her," Billie says. She stares at him, silently daring him to protest. Chris hesitates. "What do you think I'm gonna do? Hurt her?"

Chris swallows thickly. "No," he says quietly, rising from the bed. "You're right."

Billie's the one who avoids his gaze now, brushing past him to take his place at the foot of the bed. "Go easy on him," she orders. "He's been a mess, the last couple months."

Chris sighs. Another thing to feel guilty about. Great.

He passes Paige on the stairs, who stops short on the landing and bites her lip, her eyes wet and teary. He moves into her hug without a word, sagging a little at the press of familiar arms. She looks the same as she did in 2003, smells the same, hugs the same. He hadn't realized how much he'd missed her, before.

"How are you?" she whispers, gripping his neck tightly. She's holding a vial of something in one hand - something for Wyatt, probably. "God, we were so worried. How do you feel? Any pain?"

"Fine," Chris whispers back, feeling like he should, for some reason. "I'm okay. Billie gave me some stuff."

Paige grips him tighter, one last squeeze before she lets go, wiping her cheeks as she pulls away. "Wyatt's still out. Piper and Richard have been sitting with them - do they know you're up yet?" Chris shakes his head. "I'll tell them. How's Bianca?"

"Still asleep."

Paige nods, like she already knew. She probably did. "I healed the wound on her head. But natural sleep is better for magical exhaustion than healing magic." She shakes her head sadly. "That's what we're hoping...with Wy…"

Chris squeezes her wrist, not knowing what to say. She smiles weakly.

"I better get up there," she says, holding up the vial. "The Elders gave us this - ambrosia. It should help accelerate the healing."

Chris bites the inside of his cheek, his chest seizing.

"We'll talk more later, okay?" She pats his shoulder, brushing past him. "Your dad's downstairs."

"Yeah," Chris mutters, steeling his shoulders as he continues down the stairs, in the opposite direction. "So I've heard."

Leo is at the kitchen sink, leaning heavily against the counter and staring out the window, over the front garden. He turns at Chris' entrance, and his face softens, moving from grief and anger into a sort of distant, muted wonder.

"Chris," he says heavily.

"Hey Leo," Chris says, watching his expression twitch a little. At the lack of 'Dad', or the reminder of the son who called him that - or both.

To his credit, Leo doesn't mention it. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine," Chris says honestly. "Pain's mostly gone. Billie's potions really do work wonders."

"She knew right away what had happened, wouldn't let us near you," Leo says wryly. "Said she'd take care of you and Bianca, and that we should focus on Wyatt. You guys talk, a little?"

Chris just nods, not wanting to go into it further.

"Good." Leo moves around the island, holding out his arms, his face clearly not accepting no for an answer. Chris submits to the hug, and finds himself comforted by it despite himself - there really is something undeniable about Leo's grace and care. He never understood why everyone always forgave him for everything, no questions asked, until he went back to 2003 and experienced it for himself. "I'm glad you're here, son."

Chris takes one long breath, then another, and then steps away, out of the hug. Leo lets him go silently, his face infuriatingly understanding. As usual.

"What, uh," Chris says, clearing his throat. "You went to see the other Elders, then?"

Leo nods, moving to sit at one of the high stools at the island. The same ones that'd been there in 2003, Chris notices. He joins him there, carefully laying his hands on the familiar tile. "They think he'll be fine. They're certain we got to him in time, that they'd be able to sense another incursion. We've sensed all the others."

Chris nods. "I don't think that's my Wyatt up there," he says. "Billie said the same. We'd be able to feel it."

Leo's shoulders slump a little in obvious relief. "Thank God," he mutters, running one hand through his messy hair.

"What about the body?" Chris forces himself to ask.

"It's taken care of," Leo says firmly. "We couldn't tell who she really was. The condition…"

Chris shakes his head, waving him off. "It doesn't matter," he says. "It could've been anybody. It wasn't anyone we knew well. She would've revealed herself if she thought it would hurt us, but she didn't. She knew her real identity wouldn't mean anything to me."

"One of...the other Wyatt's people, then?"

"Obviously," Chris says. "She was a witch - a powerful one. Probably a light one, that gave in to him. The ones who betrayed the light for Wyatt's sake were always the most loyal." Chris shakes his head. "They believed in him more than anyone else, because they had to. Doubting him would have meant admitting what they'd done, facing up to their own betrayal."

"We think she was the one who kept bringing them over," Leo says. He leans in, his voice lowering. "I think she brought BIllie over, too. Don't mention this to the sisters, Chris, but that fiance our Billie had? There's no sign of her in mortal records past 2021."

Chris sighs, rubbing his jaw tiredly. "That doesn't necessarily mean..."

"I know. That's why I haven't said anything." Leo leans his weight on one elbow, brow furrowed. "What did she want? I mean, did she say anything, reveal anything…?"

"Nothing that made sense. She just wanted to hurt us." Chris shakes his head. "Leo, torture was...a reward, in Wyatt's circle. He used it on his allies just as often as he used it on his enemies." He winces at the look on Leo's face. "He thought he was good, is the thing. When he recruited demons, warlocks - whatever - he would put them in crystal cages like the one she had us in and torture them like that. He called it 'correction.' Said he was making them good, turning them towards the light." He thinks about Bianca, confessing to him in the darkness. The look on her face, all those years ago, when she appeared at Piper's club, dressed in leather and resigned to what she had to do. "Who knows what she was thinking. She wanted to bring the other Wyatt over, that much we know. The rest of it was just…"

"Suffering," Leo finishes gravely. "Suffering begets suffering. The way it's always been."

Chris is quiet for a moment, thinking. "Don't entertain it, when they ask who she was, and why she did it," he tells Leo. "Just shut it down - especially with the children. She's done enough damage already, don't let her become an obsession. She doesn't deserve that kind of attention."

"We'll tell them she was a demon," Leo says quietly. "Phoebe and Coop and I already talked about it. Just evil, that's all, and that's the end of it."

Chris shakes his head. "No," he says, "don't lie to them. Just don't let them obsess. There's a difference."

Leo frowns. "Pheebs - "

"Pheebs can do what she wants, but Leo," Chris grips his father's shoulder, waiting until he looks up, making eye contact. "You're the Principality. One of the most powerful beings of Good in the universe. So many people look up to you, to set the word on what is and isn't. You cannot lie." He shakes Leo a little, willing him to get it. "Even if it's for their own good. You set a standard, Leo. Wavering from it even a little is the first step down a path we've seen countless times before. You have to hold yourself to it, even when it's hard."

Leo's face is ashen, but he's nodding. He laughs a little, gripping Chris' wrist. "Damn," he says, swallowing thickly. "Okay."

"Not to get preachy on you or anything," Chris jokes, withdrawing his hand.

"The one thing you get from me, and it's the thing that annoys everybody," Leo says wryly, chuckling again. "You're right, though. You're often right. It's very annoying."

"So I've been informed," Chris says dryly, "many, many, many times."

Leo chuckles again, looking back over at the window. Dusk is starting to fall, and the world outside is painted in blue and grey. "Wyatt and I," he says haltingly, "we haven't been in a good place, for the last year or so. We lied to him about the divorce." He looks back over at Chris. "We lied to him about a lot of things. We were always honest with you - " he pauses, then corrects himself: "with Chris. We tried so hard not to be biased, but of course we were. Every year, he grew older and older, and reminded us more and more of...you." Leo blinks back tears. "We trusted him more. We didn't think of it as trust, at the time, but that's what it was. We trusted him with the difficult things, the hard truths we protected Wyatt from. And of course neither of them understood."

Chris listens quietly, his heart heavy.

"Chris thought it meant that we preferred Wyatt, and Wyatt thought it meant we preferred Chris," Leo says, his face lined in grief. "There was no excuse. We didn't mean it - tried so hard to prevent this exact thing from happening: treating them differently. But we couldn't help ourselves. And we didn't even see it."

"It's human nature," Chris says quietly. "I knew that might happen - knew that I'd be...skewing the future in such a way, just with my presence. Why do you think I was so paranoid about telling you things? Even when I answered your questions, I still lied. I knew I was...muddying the pool, just by stepping in it."

"It is what it is," Leo replies. "You saved us all, Chris. Don't ever forget that. I may not know everything about what your world was like, but I know it was the right thing to erase it. Don't ever think that we don't know what it cost you, and the magnitude of what you accomplished." Leo's eyes are piercingly blue, wide and earnest in the dim light. "We all know."

Chris swallows the lump in his throat, closing his eyes briefly. "I never wanted…" he says. "This. Your son didn't deserve this. I wanted more for all of you."

"It's not your fault," Leo says firmly. Despite himself, Chris wants to believe it. Hearing it said so earnestly...maybe he might come around to it, one day. "All these years, thinking about you...mourning you. Hoping you were in a better place, that you hadn't simply - " Leo struggles to get the word out. "Disappeared. I know enough about the nature of death to know that it's not fair, or benevolent, or evil. It simply is. The great equalizer: death doesn't care who you were, or what you deserve. It just takes you, and that's the end of it."

Chris nods silently. Never before has Leo talked like this, in either lifetime. He feels frozen in his seat, transfixed.

"But still, I hoped. I hoped you were in...some idyllic heaven, surrounded by people who loved you, every person that you'd lost," Leo says, his bright eyes growing teary again. "I pictured you...at peace. Eating hot food with your family, lying on a cloud with your lover. Reading books and laughing and enjoying all the good things you never got to have on Earth. And I never would've chosen this for you, either." Leo reaches out and takes his shoulder, gripping it tightly. "I never would have sacrificed my Chris for you - as much as I missed you. Not because I loved him - because God, I did - " Leo chokes on the words, the tears spilling over. "I did. More than anything. But because...you deserve more than this, too. You all do. You've lived your lives already - and they were difficult, painful ones. You sacrificed everything to give us this world, and in return, you should have been rewarded with peace, and rest."

Chris turns away, unable to keep looking at his face.

"Not that I'm saying I don't want you to be here," Leo says, still speaking with difficulty, through a choked throat. "Of course not. Of course I'm glad you're alive, but - "

"I know what you mean," Chris says. "I know, Leo."

Leo lets him go, rubbing his face with both hands. "Life isn't a punishment," he mutters. "But it's not a reward, either. It's hard work, and that's the truth. And I'm sorry, son. I'm sorry you have to do it again."

Chris sags against the counter. The weight of those words is a physical thing between them, a terrible, truthful wind blowing through the kitchen.

"I'm a selfish man at heart, and that's always been true," Leo says. "Whitelighters are chosen for their deeds, not their natures. Plenty of us accepted it out of arrogance. Plenty of us do good for our own sakes, because of how it makes us feel about ourselves."

"That's not true," Chris says. "Not you."

"Maybe not, but when it comes to you and Wyatt - and the rest of us - it is," Leo says. "I'm sorry it happened like this. But I'm not going to be sorry forever. I've always wanted you close - even when I didn't know who you were. Even when I thought you were evil! Some part of me...sensed you, sensed that you were part of me. Why do you think I let you stay?"

Chris shakes his head, at a loss.

"I'm glad you're here, is all I'm trying to say." Leo's face is lined with the same guilt Chris sees in the mirror, every time he's been brave enough to really look. "God help me - but I am. Whatever kind of man that makes me."

Chris is the one to reach out this time, a steady hand on his father's back. "A good man," he says, meaning it for perhaps the very first time. "A good father. Despite everything."

Leo just shakes his head, looking out towards the window again. Chris doesn't say anything else, but he doesn't move his hand, either. And little by little, outside, the sky grows dark.

* * *

It takes less than an hour for the ambrosia to do the trick - Wyatt wakes up, still himself. Chris sits with Billie in the living room while they all gather upstairs, crying and talking and whatever it is that parents do when their children almost get replaced by evil versions of themselves from another timeline.

"What are you gonna do?" Billie asks, her eyes on the staircase. They can hear muffled voices - the occasional laugh - drifting down from the open bedroom door on the second floor. "In the big picture sense, I mean."

"Dunno." Chris feels weird even thinking about it. He never had the luxury of something as benign as a career plan. "Bianca has plenty of money. We'll get married, I guess...I'll find something to do with myself."

"You could - I mean, I could always use the help." Billie ducks her chin, avoiding his eyes. "I mean, if you wanted. I've got interesting things you could do. If you were bored, or you wanted...whatever."

She actually sounds flustered, which is exceedingly bizarre. "I'm not so sure about your business practices, Bills," Chris says starkly. "Dime store prophecies? Nightmares as currency?"

Billie flushes angrily. "I don't do that with everybody! A girl's gotta make a living, you know." Chris rolls his eyes. "Don't be a jerk. I'm trying to be nice, here."

"I don't think you'd like some of my stipulations, if I were to come work with you," Chris says flatly.

"For me," Billie corrects.

"No, I said 'with,'" Chris says, shooting her a glare. "Stipulation one."

Billie huffs, fussing with her ponytail again. "You know what? We'll fight about it later, Christopher."

"Stipulation two: do not call me that."

BIllie just rolls her eyes again.

Leo's entrance halts whatever reply Chris could come with, jogging down the stairs, smiling to himself. "Hey guys," he says, eyes bright and happy. "He's awake. Chris, he wants to see you."

"What?" Chris asks, taken aback. "Uh - "

"Just for a second," Leo says, leaning against the door jamb. "He seems okay - doesn't seem to remember much of it. But he'd like to make sure you're alright." He pauses. "He knows everything now, Chris."

Chris still hesitates, almost every instinct he has recoiling in protest. But Billie nudges his shoulder, and leans in. "He's your brother, you should at least try, Chris," she says, pitching her voice to imitate the way Aunt Pheebs used to say it, when she was trying to convince Chris to be more open-minded about the Christmas dinners. It's a private admonishment, designed to fly over Leo's head, and Chris glares at her. "Come on."

"Just a few minutes," Leo pleads. "It would really make him feel better."

"Fine," Chris says, jerking out of Billie's hold. She smirks at him, leaning back into the couch cushions, looking self-satisfied. "Just a few minutes."

"Thank you," Leo says, oblivious to the context. Chris sighs heavily; typical.

Wyatt is sitting up in bed, surrounded on all sides by Paige, Piper and Richard, all of whom look up at Chris' entrance. He stops short in the doorway, wary, and Paige immediately stands up, trading significant looks with Richard and Piper. "Hey Chris," she chirps. On the bed, Wyatt just stares, looking impossibly young. Chris tries not to stare back. "Good to see you up and running again. Hey, guys, weren't we gonna - you know, go do...that thing?"

"Right," Richard says, reaching out and squeezing Wyatt's shoulder before he rises to his feet, giving Chris a nod. "The thing. Piper?"

Piper is smiling at both of them, her eyes wet. She grips Chris' forearm as she brushes past him. "We'll be right outside," she says. Chris steps aside to let them go, wincing as they all fail spectacularly at subtlety, as always. The door shuts firmly behind them, echoing through the quiet room.

Wyatt fidgets a little on the bed, his eyes still wide and amazed. Chris moves slowly to Piper's abandoned chair, his skin prickling. This is...incredibly eerie.

"Hey," Wyatt says, a bit unsurely, watching Chris closely as he sits down.

"Hey," Chris responds, returning the look. They assess each other for a long moment, cataloguing the differences. Wyatt breaks first, looking down at his blankets and rubbing his nose, reminding Chris surreally of baby Wyatt, that little sniffle/shuffle move he'd pull as a toddler whenever he got in trouble.

God, this is strange, Chris thinks.

"So," he says, trying to move through it, "how are you feeling?"

Wyatt shrugs. When he looks back up, his face is pained. "I dunno. Physically okay. The rest of it…" he trails off, shrugging again.

"Yeah. That's normal."

"I guess." Wyatt peers at him. "What about you? He...she, I mean, had you for a long time."

"Billie made me some potions. I'm fine now."

"And Bianca?"

"She's fine too," Chris says, rubbing his hands together. "We've both been through worse."

Wyatt's expression twists, and Chris instantly feels bad for acknowledging it. "I'm really, really sorry," he says, holding up one hand to stall Chris' protest. "I mean - for the Bianca thing. What P.J. and I did. We were just…"

"You were manipulated," Chris says firmly, "by a witch who knew much more about the situation than you did. That's not your fault, and Bianca isn't the type to hold you to it."

"Really?" Wyatt asks. "She didn't really strike me as the forgiving type. No offense."

"She knows why you did it." Chris thinks about the way she talks about the other Chris, the heavy regret and sadness she obviously feels. "She was trying to...help your brother," Chris says gently. "She cared for him too. But she knew her own position, she let her own assumptions about you color her actions. She thought she wouldn't be welcomed, if she just came to you with the truth, and so she waited, and by the time she did try, it was too late."

Wyatt stares down at the blankets, his face a mask of pain. "We all led with assumptions," he says quietly. "And Chris was the one who paid for it."

Chris lets that sit for a moment, unable to deny it. It was no one's fault but the shapeshifter's, not really. But it will take a long time for Wyatt to truly understand and accept that. Years, probably.

"I'm very sorry," Chris finally says. "Truly, I am, Wyatt. I never meant for this to happen."

"Mom and Dad told me everything," Wyatt says, wiping tears from his face. "Finally. I know you didn't mean it."

Chris nods, looking down at his hands. There's nothing profound that he could say, that would make it better. It is what it is.

"No wonder they didn't tell me the truth," Wyatt continues bitterly. "They were probably afraid I'd lose it. They sure have enough evidence, that I'm...you know."

"What?" Chris asks sharply, jerking his eyes up. "That you're what?"

Wyatt sticks out his chin. "Susceptible," he says.

"Oh, don't be stupid," Chris says sharply. "They didn't tell you the truth because they love you, and they're your parents. Would you have preferred that they told you when you were just a kid? Sat you down in fifth grade and told you all about the alternate timeline where you turned evil?"

Wyatt glares at him, obviously offended. "You don't know what it was like," he accuses. "Growing up with a bunch of people who kept secrets all the time - not telling you things - conversations stopping as soon as you entered the room - "

Chris cuts him off with a laugh. "You've gotta be kidding. Of course I do, you idiot. Use your head for a second."

Wyatt blinks at him in surprise. He seems shocked by Chris' bluntness - well, he better get used to it.

"You know those cuffs she used, that bound our powers?" Chris asks, waiting for Wyatt's nod. "They're from my timeline. The Elders invented them. That's why the lightning worked."

"The Elders?"

"Yeah." Chris tamps down his temper, reminding himself not to be too harsh. "Listen to me. I'm going to tell you a few things that I don't want you to repeat to your younger cousins, ever. Can you do that?"

Wyatt nods, his eyes wide.

"Okay." Chris rubs his hands together again, hoping he's not making a mistake. "In my timeline, magic was exposed years before I was even born. Before my aunt Prue died, even. By the time I came along, the mortal world was well acquainted with it, and had grown to fear it. Demons and warlocks - most evil beings - had long gone underground, retreating from Earth completely. So the risk was all that much greater for good witches, like us."

Wyatt doesn't say anything, listening with rapt attention.

"It was dangerous for us to be among them - we were blamed for almost anything that went wrong. They'd arrest us for anything. And despite everything, most good witches would still choose jail rather than wield their powers against innocents. The ones who didn't, who got fed up and fought back, only made it worse, of course. Poisoned their minds against us even more. The cuffs were an attempt to protect us - to allow us to live among mortals with less risk. Since demons and the like had abandoned Earth almost entirely - we weren't worried about going without our powers. Not in our everyday lives, anyway."

"Is that...part of what you changed?" Wyatt asks, hushed. "When you went back in time?"

"The very first thing I did," Chris says, nodding. "Just barely. But yes, I prevented it."

Wyatt sits back against the headboard, shaking his head incredulously.

"When our mother died," Chris says carefully, watching Wyatt's face, but he doesn't react outwardly. Thankfully. "She was wearing them. My brother was only eight years old at the time, and he had them on too. They were in a car accident - their truck rolled down a gully, and both of them were trapped in the car. She was knocked unconscious right away, but my brother was awake. But he couldn't get the cuffs off. They were tamper proof, you see. They could only be removed by magic." Chris swallows thickly. "And so he couldn't heal her. He couldn't call for our father, or any other Whitelighter, either. The cuffs prevented that, too. They made us...truly mortal. That was what they were designed to do. And so that's how she died...as a human."

Wyatt rubs his face, looking sick. "God," he says softly. "I'm sorry."

Chris shrugs. "So you see," he says, "how an action made with good intention can end up hurting someone," he says. "Of course the Elders knew the risks of those cuffs. A few of them even argued against them, for that exact reason. But we needed them. We really did. And it was nobody's fault - what happened to my mom. It was just...tragic."

"Is that what turned him evil?" Wyatt asks lowly, his face dark. "I always knew about that Elder who went bad, who tried to kill me when I was a baby. In your timeline...he succeeded, didn't he? He did something to me when I was young, that made me vulnerable later on…"

"Nothing turned him evil," Chris snaps, unable to help himself. "Gideon didn't force him to do anything. He hurt him. What happened to him then, and then again the day Mom died…" Chris trails off, lost in memory. "Of course it was terrible. There are so many ways a human being can be hurt, profoundly hurt, in a way that changes who you are. And Wyatt was changed, by both those things - and others. But evil doesn't work like that."

"Then how did you prevent it?" Wyatt challenges stubbornly. "Why did you go back in time at all? Dad said you were trying to find the demon who corrupted me...who made me what I was - "

"I was trying to change your circumstances," Chris says, leaning forward to look his brother in the eye. "The path of your life. It's all I could do! But don't you think, if it were as simple as finding the right demon to vanquish, that we would always be able to prevent it? Why does anybody go down the wrong path? It's not a comic book, Wyatt. You can't turn someone away from darkness by killing the bad guy."

"So it was me," Wyatt says, stricken, and there: that's the real question he has. "It was really just me."

"Yes," Chris says heavily, watching the weight of that hit him. "Yes, but it doesn't mean what you think it means, Wyatt."

Wyatt laughs bitterly, covering half his face with one hand. The look on his face is one of the most terrible things Chris has ever, ever seen.

"Listen to me," Chris says, reaching out and grabbing Wyatt's knee, beneath the blankets. "Every person in this house has the same potential to become what my brother became. Every. Single. One of us." He shakes Wyatt with every syllable, willing him to understand, to listen. "Hell - we have! Ask your mother how many times she's been temporarily evil. Ask Aunt Pheebs about her past life - Aunt Paige had one too! You're not the only one. Far, far from it, Wyatt."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better - "

"Yes, goddamn it, think about it," Chris insists in frustration. "We're humans with powers. That's it. There's nothing inherently good or evil about us. Evil is a choice, Wyatt. A choice you have to make over and over again. My brother - " Chris takes a moment to breathe, trying not to let his hurt pour out too obviously, to let it seep into his voice too much. "My brother had everyone on his side. All of Heaven - literally - working to keep him in the path of goodness. My father dedicated his entire life to teaching him, raising him in the light. And they all failed." Wyatt stares at him, still tear-streaked and angry. "Not because they weren't good enough, or strong enough. But because he didn't want it. He was so obsessed with his own pain and anger that he stopped caring about anything else. And with every step he took into darkness - he lost himself more and more, until he became a stranger. Someone nobody could help."

Wyatt buries his face in his hands, breathing deeply. Chris keeps his hand on his knee, watching him struggle with it. "Do you think," Wyatt says, muffled by his hands, "do you think I could ever - that it would - "

"Just the fact that it fucks you up like this means that no, I don't think you could," Chris says, withdrawing his hand. Wyatt looks up intently. "You don't wanna be evil, Wyatt? Then don't be. It really is that simple. We only make it more complicated because it terrifies us to admit that it's all up to us, in the end."

"But the other one is," Wyatt says thinly. "And if what almost happened to me today happens again…"

"Then I'll stop him again," Chris promises. Wyatt looks back at him earnestly, his shoulders slumping in relief. "I promise, Wyatt. I swear to God."

"Good." Wyatt nods, rubbing the tears from his cheek. "Good."

Chris sits back, feeling physically exhausted from the conversation. But he's been waiting to say these things for a long time, he realizes. It was something he needed to say, for his own sake, as well.

"If it really is a choice," Wyatt says slowly, "then what's destiny? All that talk about fate is just...what, a fairytale story?"

"Who knows?" Chris says, shaking his head. "And who gives a shit? I mean - really?" He chuckles a little, dryly. "Aunt Pheebs would tear me a new one if she ever heard me say this, but - it's all just so silly." Wyatt quirks a smile of his own, incredulous. "I've seen so many things that contradict themselves, Wyatt. It's never simple. Warlocks falling in love with mortals, giving up evil to move to the suburbs. Darklighters becoming Whitelighters again, Elders corrupting themselves out of arrogance. Demons giving their lives to save innocents. And the boy who was prophesied to save us all, the Twice Blessed, the spiritual descendent of King Arthur...grew up to be the man who damned us." Chris sighs. "I'm not saying destiny doesn't exist. But clearly...it's not as immutable as they say it is. And if you ask me...that's not entirely a bad thing."

"We can change it," Wyatt says, sounding awed by the revelation. "Wherever it comes from - whatever being or force that writes it - maybe it's just like us. Just a person, with flaws. And we can grow past our fate. Change it, the way we change our own lives."

Chris nods, smiling faintly. He's such a smart kid. Chris could always tell when he was a baby - the intelligence, the way he listened to everything around him. It used to scare him - make him think about how vulnerable he was to the wrong influence. But of course - it could be a strength, as well as a weakness. Most strengths are both.

"I think...I'm gonna need time." Wyatt leans his head against the headboard, looking balefully up at the ceiling. "I know P.J.'s going to need it. Our Chris - " his voice breaks. "He was our little brother."

Chris doesn't reply, watching him sympathetically.

"But I just want you to know, to remember," Wyatt says haltingly, "that you're our brother, too. There's room in our lives for you, if you want to be there. And it's important to me that...that you know that."

"I do," Chris promises, through a hoarse throat. "I do, Wyatt."

"Good." Wyatt nods. He looks a lot like Leo, with his earnest eyes, and unashamed tears. But it's Piper everywhere else - his jawline, his nose. Those slender, yet strong, Halliwell hands. "I think - I think we have a lot we could learn from each other. You know?"

"Yeah," Chris replies. "More than we think, huh?"

Wyatt returns his smile. Maybe, Chris thinks, he could live with this. Maybe.

* * *

"You don't have to go," Piper says, for the countless time. Chris shakes his head and hugs her tighter, not trusting himself to speak.

"You know where we'll be," Bianca says softly. She still looks wretched - deep bruises beneath her eyes, and she's clearly still exhausted - but awake enough to run interference for him. Like she's always done. "Just a call away. We can both be here in a few seconds, tops."

"Maybe more like a minute, depending on how indisposed they are," Paige jokes. "I think you two are long overdue for a honeymoon. Don't you think?"

"I think we need to get actually get married first," Chris responds, pulling reluctantly away from Piper's hug. He glances over at Bianca, who blushes a little, adorably. "What do you think, honey - Vegas? Atlantic City?"

"You better not," Piper says, smacking his shoulder. "I demand to be there. I refuse to even entertain the concept of a shotgun wedding. I'm making all the food, young man."

"Piper, that's not what shotgun wedding means," Paige says, smirking.

"I know what shotgun wedding means, I was just - oh shut up." Piper rolls her eyes at them all. "You look like your grandfather when you smirk at me like that, Chris."

"I always look like Grandpa," Chris says, laughing. "It's called 'genetics,' Piper."

"Smart ass," Piper mutters, pulling him into a hug again. "Call me - seriously, I mean it - if you need anything. And if you don't need anything, call anyway."

"We will," Chris promises. As soon as he's released from Piper's hug, he's captured by Paige. "Seriously, guys, we're just going back to her apartment. I'm not leaving for war."

"Shut up," Paige mutters into his shoulder. "Don't make fun."

Chris sobers, glancing at BIanca over Paige's shoulder. She's watching them with a strange look on her face - something between sadness, and...something else. Chris hugs his aunt a little tighter. "Sorry."

"It's okay." Paige releases him, and then - abruptly - pulls Bianca into a hug, too. To Chris' surprise, Bianca accepts it without a single blink, wrapping her arms around Paige's waist and squeezing it tightly. "You'll get back to me about the thing, right?"

"Definitely," Bianca says, shooting Chris a Look when he raises an eyebrow at her. "You've got my private number. Don't give that out to anyone, by the way."

"Oh darn," Paige says, pulling out of the hug and snapping her fingers. "I already posted it on my blog. My bad. I have a whole section for local business recommendations - you know, plumbers, contractors, assassins. I thought you'd appreciate the business." Bianca rolls her eyes at her, smirking.

"What thing?" Chris interrupts.

"Nothing," Bianca and Paige say, in tandem. Piper snorts loudly. "What?" Paige asks. "We talked; we're friends now."

"Do you seriously have a blog?" Chris asks, temporarily ignoring the absolutely horrifying idea of Bianca and Paige bonding.

"People appreciate my perspective on things," Paige says haughtily, crossing her arms. Chris looks over at Piper, who is covering her smile with one hand.

"It's a mommy blog," Piper says decisively. "Pheebs helps her with it. What? She does!" Paige shoots her a dirty look. "You should read it, Chris. It's pretty funny. Lifestyle tips, home decorating ideas...the whole Martha Stewart she-bang."

"Hey," Paige says, pouting. Bianca smirks at her, her face softening into a grin as she catches eye with Chris.

"Are you the one who redecorated the Manor?" Chris asks incredulously.

"You don't like it?" Paige asks challengingly.

"It's something, isn't it?" Piper asks, nudging Chris' shoulder. He nods, smirking.

"I changed my mind," Paige says, rolling her eyes. "Get outta here, I'm over all of you." She pushes at Bianca's shoulder, who laughs and walks over to Chris, leaning against his side. Chris slides his arm around her shoulders, pulling her close.

"Okay, but seriously," Piper says, grinning a grin of her own, "call. At least once a week."

"We will," Chris promises. Bianca, at his side, nods in agreement.

"Okay, you can go now." Piper takes a breath, moving over to Paige, who holds out her own arm for her embrace. "Oh, and remember - Pheebs is expecting you for her Meet the Husband dinner on Saturday. No excuses!"

"Still matchmaking - no wonder she married a Cupid," Chris grumbles, rolling his eyes. Paige and Piper both laugh delightedly, and the sound melts away as he and Bianca orb out, the echo of it following them as they travel at the speed of light, back to Honolulu.

Reappearing again in Bianca's living room, Chris stands there for a moment, just listening. Bianca stays pressed against his side, and eventually they fall into a proper hug, just holding each other in silence, breathing in tandem.

"Hey," Bianca says softly, after the moment has stretched too long, edging its way into sadness. "You hungry or something? We could get some food somewhere...take out or something. I know a few good places."

"Not really." Chris lets her pull away, feeling somehow bereft. "I'm just…"

"Yeah. Me too." Bianca keeps ahold of his hand. "You wanna just...go to bed?"

"That's exactly what I want to do," Chris says, smiling down at her. "Just go to bed for like...a week."

"Well, we can do that now," Bianca says, smiling back. It widens, as she thinks about it. "We can do...whatever the hell we want, Chris. Can you believe it?"

Chris pulls her into a kiss, thinking of a lifetime of good dreams. Fantasies and daydreams that aren't so impossible anymore.

"Yeah," he says, when they finally break apart, air rushing between their bodies like a cool breeze from an open window. "Didn't see that one coming."

* * *

 _epilogue to come. xo_


	13. Epilogue

**Six Years Later**

"She looks like a walnut," Zazi says.

"Oh, shut up," Chris says, and pulls the shawl back over Winnie's face. Already irritated by the smoke in Zazi's cave, she doesn't protest, instead snuggling closer into her carrier, gripping the gauzy fabric in one tiny fist. "You promised not to be rude."

Zazi flaps one of her wings sheepishly. "Well, she does," she says defensively. "Alright - a pretty walnut. Or whatever word you use for babies. Cute. I was trying to be _nice_ , honest."

"Winnie the Walnut," Chris says thoughtfully, stroking Winnie's round forehead through the light blue gauze. Winnie gurgles in response, cooing at him through a haze of light silk. It belonged to Patty Halliwell - a wedding gift from her mother, the indomitable Grams. It passed to Prue, and then to Phoebe, and it lives in Winnie's crib now, an early Wiccaning gift from her Great Aunt. From mother to daughter to sister to niece: a tradition Chris and Bianca can both approve of. "I can live with it. What do you think, little one?"

Winnie coos again, flailing out with her fist. The shawl bunches up over her face, tangling in the baby blanket that's wrapped tightly around her legs.

"She likes it," Zazi pronounces confidently. "Push her closer - I want to listen to her heart."

Chris eyes one of Zazi's talons pointedly. "You realize human children are extremely fragile, right? Not all of us spend the first decade of our lives inside a diamond egg."

"Hush," Zazi says, spreading her wings wide. The air seems to dampen, the smoke growing fragrant and soft. Winnie goes instantly quiet, her eyes wide behind the mask of the shawl. "Let me chat with her a bit, Chris. Before I perform the blessing."

Chris sighs, stealing one last lingering touch to Winnie's hand, before taking a step back. She doesn't fuss - practically a miracle, she's such a clingy baby. Chris and Bianca actually had to move the crib into their bedroom since she throws a fit whenever she doesn't have at least one of them in her sight. But Zazi must be working some kind of magic to keep her calm - or perhaps, she just senses the dragon's magic, just like Chris can. She's too young yet, for Chris to be able to tell how strong she is, or what her powers will look like, but...he can tell they're there. That much is obvious.

"Hello, daughter," Zazi says, her soundless voice gentle, more forgiving than Chris has ever heard it. "You are safe, and you are welcomed. Show me your heart, little one. Don't be afraid."

Chris watches intently, nervous eyes on the dragon's sharp scales, so close to the carrier (well - sharp _everything_ ), but Zazi barely even moves, and Winnie is calm and quiet, just looking up at the dragon with wide eyes. A long, sleepy moment passes, and then Zazi heaves a great, rumbling sigh. The cave fills with smoke once more, but it's still light and sweet smelling - more like mist.

"Thank you," Zazi says, lifting her head to look at Chris. Her round, shiny eyes sparkle faintly with emotion. "The loveliest heart I've ever heard, Chris. Thank you both."

Chris steps forward, leaning back down to sit on the ground next to Winnie's carrier. She gives a little happy cry when she catches sight of him, kicking her legs in excitement beneath her blanket. "Good things inside the shell, then?"

"Only the best," Zazi says. She extends her wings a bit more, draping them around the edges of the cave. Blocking part of the light from the outside, it makes the space they're sitting in feel dampened, shrouded in warmth and intimacy. "A strong will and a head for numbers. She's going to make you very proud, Chris. She'll carry your legacy with grace and honor."

Chris pulls back the shawl, smiling down at his sweet little girl. His heart lives in his throat, nowadays. Always full to bursting, threatening to overflow completely. "I already knew that."

"Pick her up," Zazi commands, tilting her head. "You know what to do."

Chris obeys without thought, lifting Winnie carefully out of her carrier, keeping Patty's shawl wrapped loosely around the baby's waist. She settles quietly into his arms, serene as she's ever been, and Chris reaches out with his free hand and orbs the offering bowl over to within reach.

"Daughter of Bianca, Piper, Patricia, and Penelope," Zazi says, as Chris carefully dips the heel of his hand into the bowl, and then gently smoothes it over the crown of Winnie's forehead, letting the rosewater drip into her dark hair. "May the Goddess guard and guide you, and the God hide and heal your spirit. May you find kindness in the gentle moon, and courage in the orange sunrise."

"Blessed be," Chris murmurs, dipping his hand again. Winnie kicks out in excitement, grinning up at him as he wets her hair once more, wiggling in delight at the cool water running down her head.

"Daughter of Christopher, Leo, Victor, and Allen," Zazi continues. The water in the offering bowl changes, darkening to a deep indigo. But when Chris dips his hand in, it goes clear, leaving no stain. Moon water - dragons are the only creatures in existence who can conjure it. "May you find balance beneath the Oak, and harmony among the Holly. May the earth beneath your feet always be steady, and the sky above you fill you with heaven's light."

"Blessed be," Chris says, letting his hand pass over her head a fourth time. Winnie's hair is almost soaked now, and he lets a few drops drip onto her nose, making her wiggle again. Pulling up a corner of the shawl, Chris uses it to dry her face, cradling her close to his chest.

"Blessed be," Zazi says, and blows a wave of smoke over them. Chris blinks through it, hearing Winnie cry out in slight alarm, but her hair is bone dry when the smoke lifts, fluffed up into soft curls against his forearm. She blinks up at him, her mouth growing slack, and sticks her fist in her mouth.

"That's right," Chris says, bouncing her a little, grinning down at her. She relaxes at the sight of his smile, kicking her feet again. "That's right, we're done with all that now. Don't you feel better? Huh? That's my girl."

"Should've done it in Latin," Zazi says fondly, folding her wings back against her torso. The light pours back into the room, making Chris wince. "That would've really knocked her little socks off."

"A moon water blessing in _Latin?_ " Chris says incredulously. "Maybe when she's older. Like, I dunno. Thirty or forty years older."

"It's not that bad!"

"You blow that smoke at someone in _Latin_ and see how long it takes for them to go running through the woods naked, or some other crazy shit like that," Chris says, rolling his eyes. "It's bad enough in English. She's not gonna sleep through the night for at least a week."

Sure enough, Winnie is practically vibrating in his arms, her face alert and vibrant. She cries out loudly - a sort of happy, manic sound - and Chris starts to bounce her a little faster, already feeling her nervous energy start to twist up into frustration. They've got a long week ahead, he thinks with resignation. A long _two_ weeks. Maybe three.

"Your wife seemed to enjoy it," Zazi says archly. "She still sends me a nice, tasty baby goat every year to thank me."

Chris bites the inside of his cheek. The night of Bianca's moon water blessing is not something he wants to spend much time thinking about while holding his infant daughter. Or in the company of anyone other than Bianca, really, and even then he'd prefer to be behind a locked door.

"Funny how this walnut was born almost _exactly_ nine months after the vernal equinox," Zazi continues. "What a legacy you have _indeed_ , little Winnifred - "

"Aaand, that's enough of that," Chris says, climbing to his feet. As soon as he leaves Winnie's direct line of sight, she starts to fuss, struggling against the little seatbelt that keeps her safely tucked inside her seat. "I should get her home, Bianca is anxious enough not being able to be here."

"Ah, that reminds me," Zazi says. One of her trunks flips open, and a small cloth bag floats over to Chris' side. "This is for her - it should help with the symptoms."

"I thought there was no cure for the magical flu, other than isolation from magic until the virus passed," Chris says, taking the bag.

"You mortals don't know everything," Zazi says with a huff. "Don't ask me what it is, and make sure she takes it at night - after midnight works best. You can mix it into tea but _not_ coffee. Steep it for six hours at least, but the longer the better."

"Noted," Chris says, tucking it away carefully. Winnie is full-on fussing now, and he picks up her carrier, gently bouncing her to keep her calm. "And Zaz...thank you."

Zazi blows a puff of smoke out of one nostril, tilting her head in her own version of a smile. "The honor is mine, my friend."

Chris reaches out and strokes his palm down the edge of her tail, deftly avoiding the spikes. Her scales ripple in response. "Your friendship is the real honor," he says seriously. Zazi snorts a little, scorching the edge of an antique fainting couch. "I'm serious!"

"Go back to your wife," Zazi says affectionately. "And bring that walnut around again. I want to get to know her."

"She'll know you," Chris promises with a smile. "She's got your smoke in her lungs now."

"Don't you forget it," Zazi says proudly. Chris orbs away grinning - fat chance of that.

* * *

Chris can hear Wyatt and Billie arguing as he orbs back to the house, though their angry voices cut off abruptly when they hear his footsteps on the hardwood. It was one of the reasons he and Bianca chose this house, when they were looking - the hallways and high ceilings allow sound to carry through everywhere. There is no sneaking up on anyone, in their home, no matter what kind of magic powers you've got.

"Chris!" Wyatt pops his head out of the kitchen, his hair pulled back in a low ponytail. He looks like a surfer nowadays, his hair long, perpetually unbrushed, and always in some kind of bun. Chris is informed that it's in style, and actually very cool, and looking like a bum is _the entire point,_ duh. "How'd it go?"

"Fine," Chris says, setting Winnie's carrier carefully down on the low table pushed up against the living room wall. Wyatt hurries over eagerly, already making faces at her, almost bouncing in his eagerness. "What's going on - you guys still fighting about that girl from Seattle?"

"No," Wyatt says, a little too quickly. Chris smirks at him, gesturing for him to take over, and Wyatt grins and starts to extract Winnie from her little seatbelt, lifting her gingerly into his arms. "There's my favorite girl," Wyatt murmurs, cradling Winnie against his chest and bouncing her gently. Winnie wiggles in excitement, ecstatic as she always is to see her favorite surfer bum uncle. "Did you have fun with Auntie Dragon? Yeah? Inhaled some moon smoke, huh?"

"She is officially moon blessed and extremely hyped," Chris confirms, trailing after them both as Wyatt bounces and grins his way back towards the kitchen. "Seriously, Wyatt - did she come back?"

"No, worrywart," Wyatt says, pitching his voice in a higher, cheerful register, for Winnie's sake. "No, we weren't fighting about that. Billie was just - " Wyatt stops abruptly when the woman herself appears in the doorway, a scowl etched on her face. "...making lunch," Wyatt finishes weakly, his grin slipping more into 'sheepish' territory. He glances back at Chris nervously, who shakes his head silently.

"I have _never_ in my _life_ made food for a _man_ ," Billie pronounces sternly, her arms crossed and eyes narrowed. "And I'm _not_ about to start now. Tell the class what you were really about to say, Wyatt, go on."

Wyatt looks back at Chris again, still grinning with all of his teeth, just on the edge of manic. "Just chatting with Chris and Winnie about what an intelligent, well-balanced, powerful, smart, pretty aunt you are in every facet and area of your life. Hey, speaking of lunch..."

Billie snorts loudly, and knocks her elbow against the jam of the door as she uncrosses her arms. She curses under her breath, rubbing it with her other hand. "Oh yeah sure," she drawls, moving out of the way to let Wyatt and Winnie bounce past into the kitchen. Chris pauses at her side, healing the bruise with a brief touch. She smiles at him in thanks, a bit wanly now that Wyatt is out of sight. "Seattle," she stage whispers, raising an eyebrow meaningfully.

"Figured," Chris mumbles back.

"I'm officially washing my hands, _you_ talk to him about it," Billie says quietly, shaking her head as she turns away. Chris follows her into the kitchen, trying not to smile too obviously. They're honestly just so predictable.

Wyatt and Winnie are chest deep in the fridge, and Parker is sitting at the kitchen island, chopping up strawberries with one of Chris' good kitchen athames. Chris immediately beelines to her side and neatly plucks it out of her hand, shooting her a look at her protest. "Hush," he says, handing her a normal knife instead. "Come on now, you know better."

"It just cuts better," Parker grumbles, but resumes her chopping. "Aunt Bills and I are gonna make strawberry shortcake, Chris - can Winnie have some?"

"She's only seven months old, Parker, she can't have solid food yet," Chris says.

"Yeah, but if we mushed some up with whipped cream, we thought maybe she'd like it," Parker says eagerly. She dumps her cutting board of cubed strawberries into a waiting bowl, turning her head to grin at Billie, who is lurking by the sink, feathers still ruffled. "Mom and Dad started doing that with Peyton when she was around the same age. Not with cake though - just peas and stuff, but still."

"Maybe," Chris concedes, squeezing past Wyatt to get to the cupboard where they keep the tea. He runs a quick hand over Winnie's head as he moves past.

"That means no," Parker says, frowning a little.

"No means no, and maybe means maybe. Wyatt, did you seriously drink all the green again?" Chris tosses the empty box towards the recycling bin, turning around to give the small crowd that has gathered in his kitchen the stink eye. "You know, it occurs to me that none of you idiots actually live here, and yet _somehow_ , I never manage to be fast enough to drink my own damn tea."

"Hey, I live here," Billie protests.

"Only technically," Chris says. "On a _temporary_ basis."

"Wow, Park, I guess 'temporary' meant something different in the other timeline too," Wyatt says, emerging from the cavernous fridge with one of Winnie's pre-prepared bottles in one hand. "Better add that to your translation dictionary."

"'Maybe' means 'no,' and 'temporary' means 'for the last six months, and probably indefinitely into the future until I admit that it's permanent,'" Parker says, her eyes comically wide. She gives an exaggerated nod. "Right. I'll add it in."

"Neither of you are funny," Chris says archly. He flips on the electric kettle for water with a flick of his hand. "I guess I'll just make my _extremely sick wife_ some _bargain bin tea_ , then - "

"Tell her she can have some of the shortcake!" Parker chirps, shoving her strawberry bowl into the fridge. "She's the one who picked out the recipe. It was either this or black forest cake, but Bianca said she liked strawberries better. Hey - did you get that from Zazi?" Parker edges up against Chris' elbow, peering at the little bag of medicine curiously. "Wow, it smells like - _wow._ " Her eyes water a little, and she angles her face away.

Chris winces. "You're probably more sensitive to it than we are," he says apologetically. "It's supposed to help Bianca."

"What is it?"

"Probably just malachite dust," Billie chimes in, sounding bored. "With some other dragon secrets mixed in. Wyatt, watch the baby," she says sharply, jerking her head around suddenly. Wyatt glares at her, one hand laid protectively against Winnie's back. "You almost slammed her head into that cupboard!"

"Oh, I did _not,_ " Wyatt snaps. Winnie laughs in his hold, delighted by the commotion.

"They've been at each other's throats all day," Parker whispers to Chris. She glances over her shoulder at the scowling pair. "Aunt Billie said something mean about that demon girl Wyatt liked."

"Has he heard from her?" Chris asks, concerned. Parker shakes her head. "Well, that's something."

"I think he still wants to get in touch with her though," Parker whispers. "I heard them fighting about it."

"Great," Chris mutters with a sigh.

" - really _don't_ appreciate what you're implying," Wyatt is saying, clearly struggling hard to keep up the cheerful, baby-friendly tone of voice.

Billie doesn't bother. "Would you just sit down please? And stop that stupid bouncing, you're going to make her nauseous."

"She has to eat something to be nauseous! Which is what I'm _trying_ to do here, if you hadn't noticed - "

"Better check it then, unless you wanna burn her mouth off," Billie says snidely. Wyatt visibly stops himself from replying, turning sharply back to the microwave. Winnie laughs loudly, kicking her feet against Wyatt's waist.

"Right," Chris says, into the sudden, awkward silence. "You two are clearly fine. No issues at all, here." Parker elbows him sharply, biting her lip.

Wyatt shoots him a withering look. " _I'll_ watch Winnie for awhile," he says, refusing to look over at Billie, who is stirring sugar and butter together with _extreme_ force. "Chris - why don't I take her to the Manor? Mom and Richard are still in New York, but Paige and the boys are house sitting, and they haven't seen Winnie in awhile."

Chris reaches out and takes one of Winnie's flailing hands, letting her curl her fingers around his thumb. "She definitely needs to burn off some energy," he says. "Fine - just for the afternoon. I don't have a bag ready for her to stay overnight, and Bianca…"

"Don't worry about it," Wyatt assures him, cupping Winnie's head with his big palm. "Seriously - we'll have fun, right?" He nudges Chris' arm with his elbow. "Just take care of Bianca. I'll handle the baby stuff, don't worry."

"You inviting yourself to spend the night, then?" Billie mutters.

"Bills," Chris says, rolling his eyes.

"What?" Billie stirs a little harder.

"I think that sugar and butter is sufficiently creamed by now, Aunt Bills," Parker says delicately. Billie stops stirring abruptly, dropping the spatula with another scowl. "But...thank you! It looks great!" She gives Billie a sunny grin, which seems to thaw the ice just a bit. Parker is one of a very small group of people who can pull that off, and Chris suspects it's because Parker is just too stubbornly cheerful to care when it doesn't work. "Wow, Chris, I think your dragon tea is ready." Parker steps away from the stove, holding her nose, her eyes watering.

"Sorry," Chris says, quickly picking up the mug and moving to carry it out of the room. "I'm gonna take this up. Please don't kill each other in front of my daughter," he calls over one shoulder.

"Or me," he hears Parker add sternly. Still somehow cheerful, though.

They've turned the spare bedroom into a temporary sick room, warding it against magic with the strongest spells they could find. As Chris steps through the door, he feels the effects immediately, and he has to pause for a second against the doorway until he gets his bearings again. It feels like a change in air pressure or something - like your ears popping, but much more disorienting.

"Hey honey," Bianca says ruefully, watching him with red eyes from the bed. She still looks terrible, but her color is a little better than it was yesterday, and her voice sounds less hoarse, too. "How did it go?"

"Wonderfully," Chris says, more honest, now. He moves to sit next to her on the bed, setting the tea on her bedside table carefully. "This is from Zazi - a dragon secret. It needs to steep until midnight - make sure you don't drink it until then."

Bianca hums in vague interest, rolling over a little so he has room to lay down next to her. "Whatever," she says impatiently, "tell me - "

"Yes, yes, okay," Chris says, settling next to her on the pillow. She squeezes in close, her hair falling limply against his shoulder. "It was beautiful, to be honest," he says quietly. "Winnie went quiet as soon as it started - she did so well. Barely fussed at all. And she changed the blessing, from your ceremony. It was...yeah. Beautiful."

Bianca sighs forlornly. "I should have been there," she says, coughing a little. "I can't believe that I - "

"Don't go there," Chris admonishes. "You can watch my memory of it when you're better. I know a spell."

"It's not the same," Bianca says sadly.

"No, but it's better than nothing." Chris kisses her forehead. "I'm sorry, baby. Maybe we should have postponed it..."

"No, if we'd missed the equinox, we would've had to wait an entire year, and I don't want her unprotected for that long," Bianca says firmly. She coughs again, muffling it into a handkerchief she has clutched in her free hand. "It's bad enough that we keep putting off the Wiccaning."

Chris stiffens. "I thought you agreed with me about - "

"I didn't mean it like that," Bianca snaps, then closes her eyes briefly. "Sorry. I'm - my head is pounding, and I can't manage to sleep for longer than an hour or two, and - "

"It's okay," Chris soothes, pressing his lips against her forehead again, much longer this time. Bianca sags into his embrace, sniffling quietly. "It's alright, sweetheart. It's been a rough week."

"I just meant," Bianca says quietly, "I'm worried. The moon water blessing is powerful, but it still doesn't beat the proper ceremony. And I wish we could just...figure something out already, that's all."

"Leo thought maybe if he and the Elders performed it, it might - guide it in the right direction," Chris says delicately, already knowing that she'll hate the idea.

"A _man_ , performing a Wiccaning? No." Bianca shakes her head stubbornly. "And the only female Elder we can stand is Elena, and she'll never agree."

"If we're determined to do the ceremony, and determined to somehow prevent your mother from appearing," Chris says gently, "we might not have any other alternative, Bee."

Bianca is quiet for a long moment. "I know why you don't want to summon your great grandmother," she says, and rushes to finish as Chris stiffens again. "I _know,_ honey, I know. I know. But I just - this is important, Chris, and - God, I don't want to ask you to do it, but I think I'm gonna have to. I'm _sorry -_ "

"Alright," Chris says, forcing himself to relax. "It's okay, I know what you mean."

"If Piper could do it," Bianca says, trailing off.

"There's no way she could stop your mother's spirit from showing up. I mean - with the Power of Three, _maybe,_ but none of them are experienced enough with spirit guiding to do something that...delicate, and - Penny Halliwell is just…" Chris sighs.

"I know," Bianca says again. Her wry laugh turns into a cough halfway through, and Chris rubs her back softly, wincing up at the ceiling in sympathy. "Let's just...we'll talk about it later. We'll just have to figure something out, I guess."

Chris reaches up to rub his forehead, as subtly as he can. The null field in the room has the side effect of giving him bad headaches, and Bianca's started to notice, and order him out of the room whenever he shows signs of pain. She refuses to even entertain the idea of bringing Winnie inside the room, either - which Chris agrees with, of course, but clearly the separation is taking its toll on Bianca. When he comes in to check on her at night, he can tell she's been crying. "Do you think I'm just being a coward about it? I know you're wondering too - who would show up, when we did it."

Bianca tangles her hand in his shirt, tugging at him affectionately. "Certainly would be something," she says softly, "to see multiple versions of those aunts of yours in the same room."

Chris doesn't even know how to process that possibility, quite honestly. The Wiccaning ceremony is an old tradition, and a powerful one in the Halliwell line, but - as always, the nature of their situation makes it both complicated and mysterious. "I don't know whether to hope for it or not," he says quietly. To see _his_ family again, after so long...he can't even picture it.

Bianca presses her face against his chest in silent support, rubbing his stomach. They lay there for a moment in the quiet, matching their breathing together.

"Billie started things up with Wyatt again about Stella," Chris says after a minute. Bianca jerks her head up in surprise. "Apparently she said something - I dunno. Parker said they've been fighting."

"They must've soundproofed my room again," Bianca grumbles. "You gotta take that spell off the door, Chris - I'm serious."

"I will," Chris assures her. "Did Parker say anything to you?"

"No," Bianca says with a sigh. "The poor kid's freaked out enough by this 'magical flu' shit. She mostly just comes in here to reassure herself that I'm not about to drop dead any minute."

"Magic in general freaks her out," Chris says sadly. "I don't know what the hell Phoebe and Coop are thinking, with this Magic School idea - she's not gonna last a _day_."

"You have to confront a fear in order to conquer it, so I get that part," Bianca says, shaking her head. "But - she doesn't have any _powers_. I know they're going to make accommodations, but...Christ, she's only fifteen years old. Can you even imagine how hard it's gonna be for her? Being surrounded by it day after day, rubbing it in her face? Not to mention how her classmates will probably treat her…teenagers are still teenagers, even when they're magical. Maybe _especially_ when they're magical."

"Yeah," Chris says, with a frustrated sigh. "I don't know. I can't talk to Pheebs about it - she doesn't wanna hear it. I think she still thinks her powers will just appear out of the blue one day, if they expose her to it enough times…"

Bianca snorts, making her opinion on that fairly clear.

"They mean well," Chris says.

"So does Wyatt," Bianca says archly. "But trying to reform every demon he comes across isn't going to make P.J. come home any more than sending Parker to Magic School is going to make her a witch. I know you agree with me, I know," Bianca says, holding up one hand. "I'm just venting. Feel free to ignore me."

"They just feel guilty is all," Chris says, shrugging. "Phoebe thinks it's her fault for some reason, that Parker isn't magical. Wyatt is _convinced_ that he's the reason P.J. is staying away. As if you and I don't exist..."

"Well, blaming us would probably make more sense, but I'm not about to point that out," Bianca replies.

"Right," Chris says dryly.

"They don't see what it does to Parker, to have to grow up with all this grief about P.J. all the time," Bianca says hotly. "She already feels inadequate because of the magic thing. And then she feels guilty, because she feels like she has to step into the place that P.J. left, and she knows she can't - not magically speaking, anyway. And then when they go on and on about her...how tragic it is, how sad, yadda yadda…"

"It _is_ tragic and sad, Bee."

"Sure, but - she made her choice," Bianca says stubbornly. The old resentment has never faded, between P.J. and Bianca. They'd tried, at first, of course - but the older P.J. got, the more resentful she became. Not just of Chris and Bianca's presence, but of her family's embrace of them, to the point where she just separated herself from all of them entirely. It was a terrible thing to watch - a situation that Chris knew was absolutely, one hundred percent their fault. But Bianca's constant, stern pragmatism has kept him away from self-recrimination, for the most part - and the Halliwells, to their credit, didn't allow him much leeway for guilt, either. "She married a _Darklighter,_ Chris. Not just some warlock, or a reformed demon. A _Darklighter._ "

The only evil magical being that is impossible of becoming good (mostly because of a technicality - because if they truly reformed, then they'd become Whitelighters again), P.J. had made her point loud and clear. And the last time they'd checked, the husband was not exactly interested in turning his orbs blue again anytime soon. "They want to keep the door open, it's none of our business."

"I know. But Parker…"

Chris squeezes Bianca's shoulder. "She has you in her corner," Chris says. "I know you're worried about overstepping with Phoebe, but - Parker knows we'd go to bat for her if we had to, and I think that alone helps."

"I just feel like," Bianca says, shaking her head, "I mean, I knew it'd be like this. Sort of family, sort of not. And Goddess bless your dope of a brother for loving us the way he does, but...Winnie deserves better than this. And Parker, too. And to think that it's because of _us,_ that she'll have to deal with these same issues…and then Peyton and the boys, too..."

"Not forever," Chris reminds her. "It's so much better now than it was, right after. And it'll keep getting better, with time."

"Maybe that's why _I'm_ afraid of the Wiccaning," Bianca confesses. "I'll probably worry about this for the rest of my life, though. I should just get used to it."

"They all love us," Chris says firmly. "You know they do. It's just not…"

"Easy for them to do so," Bianca finishes. "Yeah."

Chris kisses her forehead again, laying it softly against her temple. "It's easy for Parker," he says quietly. "She and Wyatt both find it so easy. I can't believe it, sometimes."

"The cheerful morons," Bianca says fondly. "Always in our kitchen."

"Right." Chris smiles. "They all have their moments - even Phoebe and Coop. It's not so terrible."

"Better than what we would've had otherwise," Bianca agrees. She tilts her head up for a proper kiss, lingering on his bottom lip. "And I love you," she whispers, murmuring the words against his cheek. "We made a beautiful little girl together, you and me. And we're gonna make more."

"How many?" Chris asks, laughing softly. "You planning something behind my back or what?"

"At least one more," Bianca pronounces, kissing him again with a loud smack. "Girls need siblings. And Winnie in particular - she'll need someone to watch out for."

Chris grins down at her, unable to contain it. "Nine months of an agonizing pregnancy," he says, "four months of which you spent on bedrest, then another five with a colicky, sick baby - "

"Ear infections don't make her sickly," Bianca says, pinching him. "She was still amazing, every scream was a goddamn _gift_ and you know it."

"Literally, I think we've had, what - one month, altogether, where somebody wasn't either sick, or up all night, or bedridden?" Chris says with another laugh. "Then this stupid flu - I mean, I'm just saying, of course we can have another baby, but the fact that you're even thinking about it right now is just - "

"I'm just saying eventually, I'm not saying right this second," Bianca says, grinning back. "I can't help it. You've turned me soft, hotshot."

"You were always soft," Chris tosses back at her. "I just gave you a good excuse."

Bianca's smile turns a little shy, as it always does when he says something like that. After all these years, Chris is starting to see her finally believe it.

"I guess you did," she says. Her smile turns sad. "I miss Winnie, Chris."

"Drink that tea," Chris reminds her, pulling her back down to rest against his shoulder again. "Zazi works miracles."

"It's gonna taste like absolute shit, isn't it," Bianca mumbles, sounding resigned.

"Dragon shit, to be precise," Chris says.

"Typical," Bianca says.

* * *

When Chris finally emerges, once Bianca has succumbed to a fitful - but heavy - sleep, Wyatt and Winnie are gone. Chris feels a sharp pang, which he quickly squashes - of course he wouldn't interrupt, just so Chris could say goodbye. They're only going to be gone for a few hours - it's ridiculous to feel sad, or offended. If he tells himself that enough times, he thinks wryly - maybe he'll stop feeling like this every time Winnie is out of his sight for more than a few minutes.

 _Maybe._

Billie and Parker are still in the kitchen, talking quietly at the island. They fall quiet when he enters, but unlike the argument from before, it has the air of intimacy, not anger. "Hey," he says, taking the stool next to Parker. She smiles up at him, sweet as ever. "Am I interrupting? I just followed the smell of cake."

"Nah. It's almost done," Parker says. She frowns suddenly, looking concerned. "Did the spells give you a headache again?"

" _How_ can you tell every single time? I swear I wasn't frowning or anything."

"It's her gift," Billie says quietly, watching fondly as Parker bounces around the kitchen, pulling out a little box of Ibuprofen, and opening the tea cabinet again to rifle through, looking for the basil tea he drinks for his migraines. "Don't have to be magical to be an empath, you know."

Parker shakes her head, blushing a little. "He just has a tell," she says, a little defensive. "Don't ask me what it is, though - there's no way I'm telling."

"Fair enough," Chris says, amused. He glances at Billie, who is using her bottled water to hide her own smile. "Bianca seems a bit better."

"Yeah, she was really upset about missing the moon water blessing," Parker says, turning on the kettle and returning to her seat. "What was it like? Bianca told me a little, but she seemed a little...hesitant to talk about it."

"Yeah, well, when Zazi blessed her, it was...a very different kind of ceremony," Chris says delicately.

Billie snorts. "Much more adult, I would imagine." Parker's eyes go wide, and her cheeks flush again.

Chris shoots Billie a dirty look. "It's just...like any other blessing," he says. "You can say whatever you want - each family has their own traditions. Zazi uses older ceremonial blessings that the high priestesses were using during the time that she was last on Earth. So it was a bit more old fashioned than the ones your mom used with Peyton, or Aunt Paige did with Henry, Jr. and Jamie."

"It's the moon water that's special, right?" Parker asks. "Only dragons can make it."

"Right." Chris smiles at her, as the kettle starts to whistle. "No, don't get up - I can make it. Thanks for starting it for me, kiddo."

"I wish I could meet her," Parker says, a little wistfully. Billie reaches out and pats her elbow. "Zazi, I mean."

"Maybe we could work something out," Chris says, coming back with his tea. The smell (extremely pungent - Piper gives him basil from her garden to make this tea, and it's always practically overwhelming) is already loosening up the pain, chasing the lingers of it away. "You couldn't see her in person, but maybe...a scrying mirror? Or some kind of summoning…"

"I have these dreams about her sometimes," Parker says tentatively. She looks over at Billie, a little uncertain. "I mean, I have dreams about everybody, but usually they just seem like dreams. But sometimes I dream about Zazi, and she looks sort of like how you describe her. And sometimes I wonder, I mean - it feels so real…"

Billie gives Chris a significant look. "It could be her," she says. "She's not just a dragon, kiddo - though that would be amazing enough on its own - she's a Seer, too. A real one. She can do a lot of things that we would say are impossible."

"What are the dreams about?" Chris asks curiously. Zazi's never mentioned anything.

Parker shrugs. "Whatever," she says. "We just talk, usually."

"About what?" asks Billie.

"Just stuff. All kinds of things, really." Parker looks a little bashful again, and Billie and Chris exchange another look - a silent agreement to drop it. "But why would she want to talk to _me?_ I mean, of all of us kids…"

"Don't talk like that," Billie says sharply. "Why _wouldn't_ she want to talk to you?" Parker ducks her head.

"I met Zazi a very long time ago," Chris says. "When I was in the past. The very first year I traveled to was 1994 - that was long before your mother and aunts got their powers, or even knew they were witches. Our great-grandmother was still alive, too." Chris takes a moment to remember, how overwhelming it was at first. Everything felt so...off. Even the colors looked different. "I couldn't reveal my presence to the Halliwells at all - I mostly went back there to acclimate myself first, before I tried to really do anything. I spent most of my time in the Underworld, and that's where I met Zazi. She knew right away who I was - obviously - and we became friends."

"That's crazy," Parker comments, her eyes wide. "I didn't know you went back that far - the way Mom talks about it, I thought you were just in 2003 and 2004, and that's it."

"Well, they don't know the whole story," Chris confesses, glancing over at Billie. She looks just as rapt with attention, her eyes sharp on Chris' face. "Anyway - that's not important right now. Dragons are...territorial, is my point. And even though she's immortal...thirty-three years is a long time to know somebody, even for a dragon. So she feels a certain...ownership, I guess, of me and the people I love."

Parker ducks her chin again. "That's pretty cool," she says quietly.

"She's a very powerful being of Good," Billie tells her. "If she's taken an interest in you, Park, that means she sees the same potential in you."

"'Potential?'" Parker repeats incredulously.

"Yes! Not everything is about magic," Billie chides. "You can do just as much good in the world as a mortal as you can as a witch. In the end, it's all just...details, anyway." She glances down at her own hands, weathered and spotted with pockmark scars, from years and years of dodgy potion making and reckless spellwork. Her shakes have gotten worse, Chris notices with some concern. They've been becoming more and more noticeable, since Winnie was born. He's not sure anyone else has noticed yet - but, he'd be willing to wager that Billie has. No wonder she agreed so quickly to moving in. "I'm telling you, kid. You gotta get that voice out of your head. You're not gonna get anywhere if you keep listening to it."

Parker bites her lip, rubbing her nose a little. Chris and Billie kindly let her gather herself, and when she brings her face back up, it looks smooth and unbothered. "Well," she says, "whatever you say. I don't really wanna talk about it right now, if that's okay."

"Of course it is," Chris says, taking another sip of tea. He offers her the mug too, and she accepts with a smile, tasting it hesitantly. "Do you want me to ask her? So you know for sure if it's her or not?"

Parker shrugs. "If you want," she says noncommittally. Billie raises an eyebrow at Chris, hiding another smile. "What did you mean though, when you said she's a 'real Seer'? As opposed to Mom, who...isn't?"

Sharp kid, Chris thinks ruefully. "No," he says hurriedly, "no, that's just - terminology. Billie was talking about the difference between Seers who give prophecy, and witches like your Mom who have the power of precognition, which is slightly different. They're both ways of seeing the future, they just manifest differently."

"There used to be hundreds of Seers," Billie says. "Thousands. But a lot of them were killed between the 70s and the early 2000s, when demon activity was the highest it had been in centuries. You know, one day," she says, turning her gaze to Chris, "they're going to write all this down in a history book, and they'll come up with some stupid name for all that. The Charmed Era, or...The Great Source Wars. Some bullshit subtitle thing."

"Dear God I hope not," Chris says dryly.

"Mom says it was you and Wyatt's births that ended it," Parker says. "That you were powerful enough to...bring the balance back, or something."

"I don't know about that," Chris says, rolling his eyes. "Don't tell her I said this, Park, but your mom is kind of a romantic." Parker giggles. "I think...well, you know, the Charmed Ones made a lot of headway taking out the hierarchies. The Triad, the Source, the Brotherhood. They vanquished a lot of upper-level demons in their day, and - you can't replenish your ranks with that kind of power overnight. Just by nature of who they were, they were attacked by a lot of big names. And of course, they were powerful enough to fight back and survive."

"Wow," Parker says, eyes wide.

"They'll come back eventually," Billie says darkly. "Even now, they're working on it. You don't worry about that, though," she says, squeezing Parker's elbow. "It's gonna take them awhile, yet. That's a problem for another generation."

"Was it the same in your original world?" Parker asks. Billie withdraws her hand, hiding it beneath the counter, but - Chris saw it trembling. He pretends not to notice. "Sorry - I know you guys don't really like to talk about it - "

"It's fine, you can ask us whatever you want," Chris says. He looks at Billie, who raises her eyebrows at him, as if to say, _well, you said it. Now you gotta explain it._ "It's - I dunno, Park, a lot of things were different. The basic history was the same, though."

"I was just thinking…" Parker frowns gently, a delicate turn of her mouth. Everything she does - her mannerisms, and the way she speaks - reminds Chris of a heroine from some Victorian novel. Everything is gracefully said, and gently done. As she's gotten older, he sees it becoming more of a personality trait, than a side effect of being a pretty, sweet little girl. "I don't think it bothers Wyatt much anymore - worrying about, well, you know." Parker looks at him worriedly, but he smiles to reassure her, and she smiles back. "But you know Wyatt - he never lets us see him worrying. He's got his laid back thing, and it's important to him that we don't call him on it."

Billie shakes her head ruefully. "Got that right," she mutters.

" _You're_ the only one who can manage to get him that mad, Aunt Bills," Parker says, almost reproachfully. "Not even Uncle Leo can rile him up that much."

"Aunt Bills riles everybody up," Chris says fondly. Billie makes a face at him. "It is, unfortunately, in her nature."

Parker grins. "I just think that maybe if we talked about it more, everybody could stop worrying so much," she says. "Especially with like, Wyatt, and my mom. If we learned more about what your world was like, maybe they wouldn't be so afraid of it."

"I think, actually," Chris says slowly, "just because of...what it was, it would probably have the opposite effect, kiddo. But I get what you're trying to say."

"Maybe we all need to just talk more in general," Billie says, sounding kind of resentful of the idea. "It certainly would have solved a lot of _our_ problems, Chris."

"Right," Chris replies, smiling at her ruefully. "Parker, honey, you are one of a kind. How long has it been since someone told you that?"

"Since the last time you said it," Parker says, grinning at him. Chris feels a physical pang, like a twinge in his heart, that he recognizes as the place where he feels the intense love you grow for your kids. It's the same place where his love for Winnie appeared - right next to Parker's spot, nestled in with Peyton, and wild little Henry, and the sweet, soft-hearted Jamie. He would include Wyatt in there, too, but - Wyatt lives somewhere else. Somewhere cerebral, and harder to maintain, and definitely much closer to Chris' migraines.

"I'll tell you what," Billie says, "you convince your cousin to go to therapy instead of chasing after a demon who only wants to cut him up and serve him for dinner, and we'll all go with him. Eh?" She raises her eyebrows at Chris. "Maybe Zazi can do it. Magical family counseling."

"He's not really gonna call her or summon her or anything," Parker assures them. "I'm pretty sure, anyway."

Chris sighs. "Well, if you keep goading him about it he will," he says to Billie, who huffs. "Anyway. I'll tell you one difference, Park - this one, you might find interesting." He smiles at her. "Did you know Wyatt was supposed to be a girl?"

"What?" Parker's mouth drops.

"When the sisters first got their powers," Chris says, "there was an...incident in which they traveled to the future, and Piper met her future family. Her husband - I think it was Leo she was married to still, right? In that timeline?"

Billie shrugs. "I only ever heard about it from Pheebs," she says. " _Our_ Pheebs, I mean. She told me the story once, but she mostly talked about what happened to her, you know."

"Right," Chris says. "Well anyway, it doesn't matter - in that future, she had a young daughter named Melinda. And so for a long, long time, they all sort of just...took it for granted that Piper would be the first to have kids, and that her firstborn would be a girl."

"I had no idea," Parker says, shaking her head in slow awe. "What happened when he turned out to be a boy?"

"Oh, they didn't even flinch," Billie says, shaking her head. She only talks like this about the sisters in private, really - fondly. Chris always feels like he's witnessing a treasure when it happens. "They were basically like, 'well, whatever!' Their Grams was kind of rude about it, but you know your Aunt Piper - she's a mountain. Especially when someone tries to tell her how to be."

"Wow," Parker says. "Wait - is that why - Winnie's middle name?"

"Well, you know Melinda Halliwell," Chris says, with a shrug. "We didn't care so much about the 'P' name tradition as we did giving her a name that would protect her. And a name like Melinda, that carries family history, as well as something like that - the possibility of that girl that Piper met - it seemed appropriate."

Parker's eyes are still wide. "Do you think, if Aunt Piper and Uncle Leo had had another baby - she could have existed?"

"Who knows?" Chris shakes his head, reaching out to squeeze Parker's wrist. "You can't dwell on 'what if.' You can only move forward with what you have."

Parker swallows thickly, nodding. Her long, dark hair falls forward over her shoulders, partly obscuring her face.

"Hey," Billie says, leaning in a little. "I'm sorry we were fighting so much today. I know it bothers you."

"It's alright. I agree with you," Parker says, lifting her face up. She slides her hand down, so she and Chris are holding hands, and squeezes his fingers lightly. "Somebody has to yell at him, sometimes. He doesn't listen, otherwise - and nobody else does it."

Billie smiles crookedly. "I try," she says hesitantly.

"It's the same thing she did with me," Chris says. "She was always knocking sense into me, growing up."

"You needed it," Billie says.

"No comment," Chris says, squeezing Parker's hand one more time before he pulls away, getting up to put his empty tea mug away. "I'll tell you what, Parker - if you want to know more about the other timeline, I'll tell you. Unless I think you're not ready to hear it." He holds up a hand to stall her protest. "I know, I know, you're all grown up - but some of it's pretty rough. And more of it isn't just my story to tell."

"Okay," Parker says slowly. "As long as you agree to listen to me, if I think you should tell someone else. Wyatt, or Mom, or - whoever."

"Deal," Chris says. They shake on it. "You're right either way. Maybe if we'd talked more openly...acknowledged it more, instead of just pretending we were dealing with it, then…"

Parker bites her lip. Billie gives a subtle head shake, and Chris swallows the rest of the sentence.

"Anyway." Chris smiles down at his cousin. "One of a kind. Really."

"You keep saying that, and it's gonna go to my head," Parker teases.

"Yeah," Billie replies, clapping her on the shoulder. "That's the idea, kiddo."

* * *

In the attic of their house, where their Book of Shadows will someday live - once Chris and Bianca get it together to start theirs, that is - there's a large tapestry with the Halliwell family tree embroidered on it. It's enchanted to update with births and deaths on its own - a wedding gift from the Elders. On the night Bianca gave birth, right there in the attic, on a bed of lavender pillows and blankets washed in holy water - Chris saw his daughter's name appear, spindling into existence during one of the long, long moments of pain of the labor. He remembers being distracted just long enough to see it - the light of the magic catching his eye - and realizing what it was, experiencing the wonder of it briefly before turning back to Bianca, who was still mid-contraction, not even halfway through yet. But it was a gift of relief - after a difficult pregnancy, and a thousand different worries about complications during a home birth - reassurance, that it was going to happen. That their daughter would live, and have a name, and a life, and a history.

Chris can see himself as an old man in this attic, staring at the tapestry on dark nights. Watching for that little pen of light, penciling in a date of death for someone he loves who's far away. He knows he'll do it - knows he'll always end up here, when Winnie is older, out on dates or school trips, or whatever. Even when she's grown, he'll still watch for it. He can see his own death in this attic - keeling over from a heart attack, sitting in an armchair in front of the stupid thing, always watching, waiting for the worst. Even in the happiest ending possible, Chris still can see how disaster strikes.

Wedding gift, indeed. Of course the Elders managed to find something meaningful and foreboding at the same exact time. It's a unique talent they have, as a species.

Chris stares at it now, caught specifically by P.J.'s name. _Prudence Joanna Halliwell, 14 January 2007 - ()._ He checks for a second date every night, despite himself. Phoebe has a similar family tree in her house, and he always spares a thought for her every night. He knows she's always doing the same exact thing.

"Hey, brother," Wyatt says, poking his head into the room. Chris winces, unable to help it. He still hasn't figured out a way to ask Wyatt to stop calling him that without hurting his feelings. 'Your evil alternate self used that to goad me' isn't exactly friendly conversation. But then again - to Parker's point - maybe that's been their problem, this whole time. "Sorry - didn't mean to startle you. Just wanted to make sure you knew we were back."

"Winnie?" Chris asks.

"Asleep," Wyatt says, joining him on the couch. He flops down dramatically, making the entire thing shudder. Chris winces again. "Man, you weren't wrong about the energy. She wore us all out, but the boys are just tornadoes all the time. Paige is pretty good with winding them down, though, and by the time we left she was already nodding off. I put her down in your room and, bam. Out."

"Thanks, Wy," Chris says gratefully. "I appreciate you helping."

"Not something you have to thank me for," Wyatt says with a shrug. "She's my niece - my best girl. You know I'm always down to hang out with her. I mean that - anytime."

"I do need to thank you for it," Chris says quietly. "Not because you're going out of your way - that's not what it means. But because I'm grateful, and I love you. And that's it."

Wyatt blinks at him stupidly for a second. "Holy shit," he says after a second. "Are you dying?"

Chris smiles faintly. "Not anytime soon, I hope."

"Okay, but that was a weird thing you just said. Are you alright?" Wyatt frowns. "Did something happen when I was gone?"

"I need to show you something." Chris reaches out and grips Wyatt's shoulder. "It's not gonna feel great. But I swear I just noticed it, Wyatt. I _swear._ "

Wyatt's eyes are as wide as Parker's were, and he nods silently, his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallows.

Chris stands up slowly and walks over to the tapestry, hanging on the wall. Wyatt follows nervously, and Chris takes a deep breath before he turns around. "I usually come up here at least once a day," he explains, "but since Winnie was born, things have been so crazy...and then Bianca got sick, and…"

"Oh my God," Wyatt says faintly, and Chris knows then that he's seen it. "Oh my...God."

Underneath P.J.'s name on the tapestry, another one has appeared. A marriage line is conspicuously missing, which has implications that Chris will think more closely about later, but the new name is monumentous enough for now. _Christopher Perry Halliwell II, 19 May 2033 - ()._

"Does that," Wyatt says, gulping, "does that mean - "

"Yes," Chris says quietly, gripping Wyatt's shoulder again. "I just came up to read for awhile before I went to bed, and...I saw it."

Wyatt slumps beneath the grip of Chris' hand, his face pale. "That was almost four months ago," he says faintly. "May...oh my god, Chris. P.J. _had a baby four months ago_."

"It appears that way," Chris says, not without sympathy.

"She didn't tell us," Wyatt says, voice full of hurt. He rubs a hand across his face. "And she named him…"

Chris swallows uncomfortably, not really knowing what to say about that. Not really knowing how to feel about it, either.

"I gotta, I gotta call Mom and Dad, we have to - we have to start looking for her again, find out where she is." Wyatt doesn't sound particularly urgent, just - sad. And hurt, still. "Oh man...Aunt Pheebs..."

"She probably already knows," Chris says gently. "She's got one of these in her bedroom, remember? She hasn't said anything, because she probably...well."

Wyatt leans heavily against the wall, shaking his head in silent disbelief. His hair is falling out of its tie, in ragged streaks on the sides of his face. Chris had once thought that it would bother him - the long hair, like the other Wyatt used to have. And they do look more similar now than they ever did before - Wyatt has bulked up quite a bit since he took up kickboxing, and with the long hair, he looks like a more...authentic, healthy version of the nightmare vision Chris still sees sometimes in his dreams. But strangely enough, it doesn't really bother him - the similarities. There are enough differences now that it's easy to keep them separate.

"What do you think it means?" Wyatt asks quietly. "Aside from...I mean of course she named him after Chris. Of course," he finishes, mostly to himself. Chris squeezes his shoulder one more time, before finally letting him go.

"I don't know," he says, after a long beat. "Did you notice the birthday?"

"That's - wait, that's your birthday too, isn't? May 19th?" Wyatt blinks. "Holy shit."

"It could be a coincidence," Chris says. "Maybe that's why she named him that...she had to have noticed…" _unless she planned it that way,_ is the silent conclusion that Chris isn't quite prepared to think about too closely yet.

"When is anything a coincidence in our family?" Wyatt asks rhetorically. "Jesus. I don't even know how to...process this."

"Come sit down," Chris says gently, and pulls him back over to the couch. Wyatt follows obediently, still shaking his head in stunned shock. They sit in silence for a long while, as Chris struggles to find something to say. There's nothing, really. Nothing that would really help. "Wy," he says after a long moment, "did Bianca ever tell you how we ended up on the name 'Winifred'?"

Wyatt frowns at him, looking a bit confused. "No?"

"Obviously Bianca wanted something old fashioned," Chris says. "And I didn't care, as long as it wasn't a 'P' name." He rolls his eyes. "We thought about naming her Phoebe...after _my_ Pheebs. She would've really liked that." Chris smiles fondly, remembering. "She wouldn't have admitted it to me, but it would've really touched her. She wasn't as sentimental as your Pheebs, but she was...still an optimist at heart. Even after everything."

Wyatt is looking at him strangely, his mouth twisted. "You've never really...talked about her before," he says tentatively. He goes for a smile. "Gotta say, you have weird timing."

"I do have a point," Chris says, raising an eyebrow. Wyatt smiles, and shuts his mouth. "Anyway. We thought it would get confusing, and then of course...explaining that to Pheebs, that we were naming our kid after her but _not really_...it just seemed like a nightmare."

"She would have understood," Wyatt says earnestly.

Chris shakes his head. "No," he says, "she would have _told us_ she understood, but privately - it would have hurt her. It always hurts her to be reminded of the other Phoebe - you've never seen it?" Wyatt shakes his head. "That's why she was so angry when she found out that Billie and my Pheebs were married, in my timeline. She gets angry when her feelings are hurt. It bothers her to think that she might be hurting us, by not being the Phoebe that we loved so much."

"Oh," Wyatt says quietly.

"So we didn't think it was a...kind idea," Chris says delicately. "And this family has such a hard on for legacy naming, anyone else we could have picked already was already covered, so to speak." Chris smirks. "So we decided to start something new. Winifred Halliwell."

"It's a good name," Wyatt says, still sounding confused.

"Now granted," Chris says, "there are far, far fewer possibilities for 'W' than for 'P'," he says. "Not that 'P' is the easiest either - but we figured we'd give it a shot. Hopefully our next one is a boy, because there are more boy names than girl names - we only found one or two that we really liked. 'Winona' was the other one, and...'Wren,' but Bianca was worried that that one was _too_ out there - "

"Wait, wait," Wyatt says, holding up his hand, "are you saying...because of _me?_ "

"Wyatt," Chris says kindly. "You once told me, sitting up in bed after having come _inches_ away from your own death, that there was a place in your family for us. Of course it's because of you. Because of _you,_ Wyatt," Chris says, emphasizing the difference. "Just you."

Wyatt closes his eyes, his mouth trembling.

"So you do what you have to do, to get her home," Chris continues, his voice low. "To get _them_ home. We know what our life is here, and it's a good one. And for that matter - we know _you._ " Chris reaches out and slides his hand around Wyatt's neck, squeezing tightly. Wyatt leans into him, his breathing labored. "Do what you have to do. We'll still be here. We're not going anywhere."

Wyatt is quiet for a long moment, and when he opens his eyes, they're still teary. "I love you," he says quietly. "Thank you."

"I love you, too," Chris says honestly, jostling him a little. "So go figure it out, huh? Stop wasting time."

Wyatt's smile dawns like a new day, slow and steady across his face. "Why are you always right?"

"Runs in the family," Chris says.

* * *

Winnie's awake, when Chris finally makes it to his bedroom. Just awake, quietly looking up at the mobile hanging above her crib. Not fussing, not crying. Just looking.

"Hey there, little walnut," Chris says, leaning down over her. She blinks up at him sleepily, eyes wide and curious. "What woke you up? Not bad dreams, I hope."

Winnie reaches up with one of her hands, her mouth twitching when Chris grabs it, jostling it playfully. Her fingers wrap tightly around his own, squeezing tight.

"It's been a long damn day, huh?" Chris says quietly. "Dragon blessings. New cousins. _I'm_ exhausted. How about you?"

Winnie's mouth twitches again, and she tugs on his hand, her feet kicking a little. Her baby blanket has fallen off, bunched up below her feet. Chris tugs it up with his free hand, tucking it around her tightly. If he keeps his voice pitched the right way, and stops her from getting too wound up, then she'll fall asleep again. She's been getting better and better about it, the last month or so.

"I know it seems like a lot to live up to," Chris whispers, still holding her little hand. "It is a lot. But you don't have to feel drowned by it. It just is what it is. You figure it out eventually, and if you mess up...well, we all mess it up. But that's okay. The mess is just part of it."

She looks so much like Bianca. Chris notices it most in the quiet moments - her eyes, her skin tone, and the shape of her face. He imagines her getting older...the way she'll grow into it. Maybe she'll look more like him later on, but he hopes not. He hopes she always reminds him of Bianca. His two favorite people - his happy endings.

"I love you," he tells her, watching in triumph as her eyes fall gently closed, lulled back to sleep by his voice. "I'm so glad you're here."

Her fingers doesn't loosen their hold, even as she falls asleep. Chris leans over her crib for a long time, not daring to move. Just listening to her breathe, his finger still caught in the grip of her hand.

"Yeah," Chris murmurs, finally breaking the connection. Winnie fusses a little, flailing her little fists, but she doesn't fully awaken. As he falls into bed, he reaches out instinctively for Bianca, who of course is still shut up in her sick room. Shaking his head at himself, he finally lets his eyes close, knowing with a comforting certainty what he'll see when he wakes up: a life he's made, that he's thankful to have. It's a nice feeling.

It is what it is. And Chris is, as always, ready for it.

* * *

 _thank you for all your comments and support as I speedwalked my way through this. This was a self-indulgent thing I started on a whim, and I wasn't expecting it to get this long, but apparently I had a lot to say. Hopefully you enjoyed it as much as I did. Happy holidays!_


End file.
